Implementing New Technologies - Start With Your “WHY”

The Big Takeaways

• Know your “why” behind every piece of technology you implement in your program 
• Assessment metrics fall into three main categories:
  • Profiling
  • Driving Intent
  • Monitoring 

Technology has undoubtedly taken over the sports performance space over the last five years. From force plates to GPS to data management platforms, every program, from the heights of pro sports to local high schools, has begun to implement these now accessible technologies. Instead of focusing on which technology is best for your context or getting caught up in trying to compete with the facility up the road, this article aims to take a step back and work through the “why” behind implementing any form of technology.

This concept of “starting with why” is likely something that you’ve heard before, whether in reference to understanding your athletes, building genuine relationships, creating a thriving business, or programming for your athletes. Starting with why is a heuristic that will keep you moving in the right direction. In programming, starting with understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing helps you keep your athletes' goals front of mind. It allows you to judiciously select exercises that align with that goal. While this concept is simple, it’s not always easy to follow, especially when diving into the world of sport science.

When looking at different forms of assessing, monitoring, and profiling your athletes, it’s easy to get swept away with shiny object syndrome.

“What is the newest, greatest, most cutting-edge equipment on the market?”

Or “what are the best teams in the country using?”

This thought process can lead to rash decisions that don’t align with your athletes' needs and the goals of the program. So we start with what you’re trying to accomplish with the implementation of these technologies. We start with “why.”

What’s the Aim?

At Output, we group the available metrics from different technologies into three categories:

• Profiling
• Driving Intent 
• Monitoring 

Profiling

Tests and associated metrics that fall into this category involve anything that allows you to see your athletes' capabilities in different physical qualities and compare them to themselves or their teammates. Data gained from profiling is important because it helps guide program design. Whether your goal is to improve an athlete's weaknesses, maximize their strengths, or simply see how they stack up against their peers, profiling helps you accomplish this. Profiling tests include*

• Movement Quality 
  • Mobility 
  • Stability 
  • Balance 
• Strength
  • Abosolute Strength 
  • Relative Strength 
• Power 
• Speed
  • Max Velocity 
  • Acceleration 
  • Reactive Strength 
• Fitness
  • Aerobic Capacity 
  • Anaerobic Capacity 

*This represents a non-exhaustive list

Driving Intent

Like the name suggest, these metrics improve athletes execution of a movement in real time through visual or auditory feedback. They can be individualized to each athlete or used to spark competition between the group. This feedback ultimate improves acute performance, leading to better adaptations from training. The two major options for driving intent are: 

• Real Time Feedback 
• Leaderboards

Monitoring 

There are many stressors beyond training that impact our athletes' ability to recover, and because of this, their ability to perform will fluctuate from session to session. Monitoring allows you to see your athletes' readiness in real time. By understanding these trends, you can make changes to your program based on how your athletes are responding. For example, if the team is showing more fatigue than expected, you can reduce the session intensity to match their current ability. This information also opens the door for conversations with athletes about how they can improve their recovery outside of the gym and encourages you to reflect on the structure of your program. Monitoring metrics fall into four main categories:

• Progression Regression Trends 
  • Ability to see trends over different time periods to gauge progression or regression from athletes. 
  • E.G. Mean Velocity increasing/decreasing over the last block of training at the same exercise and weight.

• Dashboarding Abilities 
  • Ability to set and monitor key targets for athletes over time individually, as a group or an individual against a group. 
  • E.G. Performance could be KPI’s of athletic performance. RTP could be looking at asymmetries and progressing over time.

• Trophies/Gamification
  • Ability for athletes to get rewarded for performance and progression. 
  • E.G. PB, best velocity at this weight, best weight on this exercise, most power on this exercise etc.

• Readiness Monitoring 
  • Ability to have objective data on fatigue/readiness to train. 
  • E.G. Can athletes maintain +90% PB in CMJ over time periods.

Example Metrics

Profiling 

Driving Intent 

Monitoring

Where Output Fits In 

Depending on the size of your team, your budget, time you have available, and knowledge of sport science Output can check one or all of these boxes. Making it an extremely versatile tool that can be used effectively for a wide range of of situations. Let’s briefly explore some ways output can be used to Profile, Monitor, & Drive Intent. 

Profiling

Output has been used in some creative ways by users like Al Murdoch and Tommy Munday to profile their athletes with different types of plyometrics and loaded jumps. 

For more from Tommy, check out this article on profiling the vertical jump: https://www.outputsports.com/webinars/profiling-and-training-the-vertical-jump 

For more from Al, check out this article on taking a speed based approach to ACL Rehab: https://www.outputsports.com/events/workshop-fast-fit-using-a-speed-based-approach-to-accelerate-acl-rehab-with-al-murdoch 

But, let’s keep it simple, and talk about one of the things Output can do for your automatically, load velocity profiles on the Output Hub. 

Within the hub on an athletes profile you can simply select and exercise, choose the sets you want to include in the analysis, and generate a load velocity profile with a theoretical 1RM in seconds. 

This not only allows you to see how strong an athlete is in a given lift without having them perform 1RM testing, but it also allows you to see the slope of the line. This can inform training by highlighting your athletes' strengths and weaknesses. Is the slope steep, meaning they are relatively strong but not very powerful? Or is it shallow, meaning they are relatively powerful but could use more absolute strength? Output's auto load velocity profiles make profiling your athletes in the weight room a simple and painless process.

Driving Intent 

Coaches have used different forms of instantaneous feedback for years to improve their athletes performance. While many Output users have had success driving intent tracking barbell velocity, jump height, and medicine ball throw velocity let’s focus on a feature unique to Output, real time leaderboards. 

Like the name suggests, these leaderboards update in real time, empowering coaches to drive competition within their groups that leads to improved performance. These leaderboards are fully customizable. Choose whatever exercises, group comparison, and filters you like and let your athletes compete. 

Monitoring 

There are many different strategies at your disposal for monitoring your athletes readiness. The versatility of Output allows you to track both subjective and objective readiness to get a more complete picture of how your athlete is showing up today. 

Subjective Readiness Monitoring 

Within Outputs Capture App, your athletes can quickly select their profile and complete the brief wellness check-in. This data then quickly uploads to their profile and can be compared against previous results and all other training data to view trends in readiness over time. 

Objective Readiness Monitoring 

One of the easiest and most reliable options for assessing readiness is the 10-5 RSI test. This requires the athletes to perform 10 continuous jumps with the goal of maximizing time spent in the air while minimizing time spent on the ground, resulting in an average RSI number (RSI = Jump Height in cm / Ground Contact Time). RSI, when tracked over time, is indicative of neuromuscular readiness because it is highly sensitive to changes in fatigue levels. Within Output’s Capture App, simply select reactive strength, then 10-5 Test, place the sensor on the athlete's foot, and you’re ready to monitor.

For more on monitoring with Output Sports, check out this article: https://www.outputsports.com/blog/creating-a-complete-monitoring-dashboard 

Wrap Up

• The most important aspect of implementing new technologies is understanding WHY you want to use it and fully understanding not only what data you are going to gain from it, but how you will use the data. 

• Output gives coaches a versatile and easy to use strategy to profile, drive intent, and monitor their athletes in any setting.