Athletic Performance Tracking

 In Athletics

Athletic training consistently focuses on building better, more efficient routines to strengthen and condition an athlete’s performance. However, for most of sports history, trainers and coaches relied on traditional strategies instead of scientifically proven techniques. As teams seek to improve their performance and athletes retire with significant medical problems, wearable monitoring technologies are becoming an indispensable way to analyze how players train, perform and recover.

The Rise of Performance Technology in Sports

As technology evolves across industries, many athletic organizations have modernized their training techniques to keep up with the times. European soccer clubs were some of the first teams to leverage seemingly unrelated cutting-edge technology to improve player performance. During the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Dutch football manager Aloysius Paulus Maria “Louis” van Gaal made use of the Google Glass augmented reality and Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets to let his players relive previous matches through the eyes of their teammates.

Many players in Major League Baseball are now using motion sensors on their bats and bodies to track and analyze the mechanics of their swings. Wearable technology has grown in popularity because of its convenience and real-time analysis. Many teams are now wearing tops specifically designed to house performance tracking technology. In 2014, financial services company IHS Markit predicted that the global market revenue for sports, fitness and activity monitors will rise to $2.8 billion by 2019.

Benefits of Wearable Technology

The widespread success of wearable technology in the sports industry is a testament to its effectiveness. By actively monitoring an athlete’s movements and actions during training, custom solutions can be developed to improve performance or address potential injury risks. Kinematic measurements such as acceleration, changes in direction and jump height are all collected to quantify the intensity of a practice session. Coaches and players alike can use these metrics to evaluate performance or alter training tactics to reach specific goals.

Movement Analysis for Performance Tuning

APDM Wearable Technologies specializes in developing and offering best-in-class solutions for quantifying human movement with wearable technologies. The Opal sensor is the foundation of all APDM technologies, allowing researchers, medical staff and athletes to monitor movement data. Our Opal sensors have a high sampling rate, 200g accelerometers and provide access to raw data. Perfect for collecting movement data inside or outside of a lab setting. Contact APDM today for more information.

https://www.si.com/soccer/planet-futbol/2014/06/27/louis-van-gaal-netherlands-world-cup-tactics
http://news.ihsmarkit.com/press-release/design-supply-chain-media/revenue-sports-fitness-and-activity-monitors-increase-nearly

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