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BJSM Online First, published on June 23, 2017 as 10.1136/bjsports-2016-097298
Editorial
The athlete monitoring cycle: a practical is difficult for practitioners to evaluate the
available evidence and develop a process
to effectively monitor athletes. A second
guide to interpreting and applying challenge facing practitioners is how to
(1) manage the ‘large’ amounts of data
training monitoring data collected, (2) make meaningful interpreta-
tions of these data to inform subsequent
training prescription and (3) translate
Tim J Gabbett,1,2 George P Nassis,3 Eric Oetter,4 Johan Pretorius,5 these interpretations into actionable steps
Nick Johnston,6 Daniel Medina,7 Gil Rodas,7 Tom Myslinski,8 for all relevant stakeholders (eg, sport
Dan Howells,9 Adam Beard,10 Allan Ryan11 coaches, performance and medical staff).
In clinical practice, and the high perfor-
mance sport setting, practitioners typically
I want to monitor my athlete but monitoring?” Quite commonly, the answer work with individual patients and athletes
where do I start? is to maximise the positive effects (eg, (even in team sports) and are therefore
Given the relationships among athlete fitness, readiness and performance) and interested in individual responses and
workloads, injury1 and performance,2 minimise the negative effects (eg, exces- whether these changes are practically
athlete monitoring has become critical in sive fatigue, injury and illness) of training. meaningful. In these environments, tradi-
the high-performance sporting environ- Once practitioners know the reasons for tional null hypothesis testing (ie, using
ment. Sports medicine and science staff athlete monitoring, appropriate tools can a p<0.05 statistical significance test) is
have a suite of monitoring tools available be chosen in order to answer the athlete limited as even a small change (which
to track how much ‘work’ an athlete has monitoring question. may have a potentially positive or nega-
performed, the response to that ‘work’ For example, if practitioners wish to tive effect) may be interpreted as having
and whether the athlete is in a relative maximise ‘fitness’ and minimise ‘fatigue’, no effect (ie, p>0.05) due to factors
state of fitness or fatigue. The volume of then appropriate monitoring tools to such as small sample size. We would
literature, coupled with clever marketing measure these outcomes are necessary. suggest the use of SDs, z scores, and the
around the ‘best approaches’ to optimising Measurement of fitness improvements smallest worthwhile change statistic (also
athlete performance, has resulted in prac- for a Premier League football player (eg, commonly referred to as the minimum
titioners having more choices than ever a Yo-Yo test) will be very different from an clinically important difference)6 to deter-
before. Furthermore, the range of different American football player (eg, a maximum mine whether athletes have deviated
practices used in sport and the lack of strength test). On the other hand, the (either positively or negatively) from
agreement between parties emphasise the measurement of external load and ‘normal’, although practitioners should be
importance of having a clear rationale for response to this load in baseball pitchers aware of the potential limitations of these
athlete monitoring. The aim of this paper will likely require counting balls thrown approaches.7
is to provide a practical guide to strategic (and speed) and the internal response to
planning, analysing, interpreting and that external load (eg, ‘arm health’). High-
applying athlete monitoring data in the speed running is important for football, The athlete monitoring cycle
sporting environment irrespective of data but less important for a baseball pitcher. Below we provide a step-by-step strategy
management software. In this respect, the ideal performance test for interpreting athlete monitoring data
and workload ‘metric’ should be context from the exposure of athletes to a single
What should I do with all of and sport-specific. Thus, understanding external training stimulus, through to the
these data and how do I choose the physical demands of the sport and the subsequent exposure of another training
what to measure? physiological capacities required of the stimulus (figure 1). The inner cycle
When deciding on the athlete moni- sport is critical in this decision-making describes (1) the workload the athlete
toring tools to use with your athletes, the process. Database management, data performed (ie, external load), (2) the
first question one should ask is “What cleaning and statistical analysis skills are athlete’s response to the workload (ie,
do I want to achieve through athlete important for practitioners, but when first internal load), (3) whether the athlete
starting with a question, “What do I want is tolerating the workload (ie, percep-
1
Gabbett Performance Solutions, Queensland, Australia to achieve through athlete monitoring?”, tual well-being) and finally (4) whether
2
Institute for Resilient Regions, University of Southern analysing and interpreting the data the athlete is physically and/or mentally
Queensland, Australia become much easier.
3
National Sports Medicine Programme, Excellence prepared for exposure to another training
in Football Project, Aspetar Orthopaedic and Sports stimulus (ie, readiness to train/compete).
Medicine Hospital, Doha, Qatar How do I analyse and interpret When combined with each previous
4
Memphis Grizzlies, Tennessee, USA the data? step, the subsequent step of the cycle
5
Sharks Super Rugby, Durban, South Africa
6
Nick Johnston Lifestyle and Sport Consultancy,
Sports medicine and science practitioners provides insight into how to interpret the
Birmingham, UK can now use global positioning technology,3 data and prescribe an intervention (eg,
7
Sport Science and Medical Department, FC Barcelona, inertial measurement sensors4 5 and quan- additional training or extra recovery) to
Barcelona, Spain tify a range of physiological responses facilitate appropriate training adaptations.
8
Jacksonville Jaguars, Florida, USA (eg, heart rate variability, testosterone and To assist decision-making for the practi-
9
Rugby Football Union, London, UK
10
Cleveland Browns, Ohio, USA cortisol concentrations, creatine kinase tioner, we have produced a matrix at each
11
Bath Rugby, Bath, UK and the duration and quality of sleep). step of the cycle. These matrices are inter-
Correspondence to Dr Tim J Gabbett, Gabbett
With such a range of monitoring tools preted using magnitude-based inferential
Performance Solutions, Brisbane, 4011, Qld, Australia; available and no agreement on the most statistics, such as the smallest worthwhile
tim@gabbettperformance.c om.au appropriate athlete monitoring ‘system’, it change (for more detail see refs 6 and 7).
Editorial
It is likely that the proposed monitoring
cycle will have greater impact if accompa-
nied by an education programme designed
to encourage involvement from key stake-
holders (eg, sport coaches) as well as
complement the intuition (ie, ‘gut feel’)
of these individuals. But the real challenge
arises in creating tailored and palatable
dissemination strategies for the relevant
stakeholders involved in sport.
Contributors TJG proposed the initial concept and
draft of the paper. All authors contributed equally to
subsequent versions of the paper and approved the
submission of the final version of the paper.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned;
externally peer reviewed.
© Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless
otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All
rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless
otherwise expressly granted.
These include:
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Notes