Looking after the health and well-being of your athletes with Metrifit
In the modern sporting world, the gap between winning and losing can come down to fractions of seconds, millimeters, or squeezing out that last ounce of energy. Coaches can’t afford to leave anything to chance in terms of their preparation, and as a result attention to detail is key to success, not only in terms of skill and physical fitness, but also in areas such as nutrition, rest, recovery and mental strength.
Data on all aspects of an athlete’s preparation is of significant value. If a coach can keep track of how an athlete is reacting to training, how they are sleeping, how they are eating and what their mood or stress levels are, they can make decisions based on that information. The importance of understanding and supporting mental wellness is coming to the fore-front in education and there is more awareness of how this can significantly affect performance. The key to monitoring is being able to
- identify potential difficulties at the earliest possible stage
- take actions to help optimize preparations and training
- ensure the best possible performance in competition
- ensure that your athletes are fit and healthy – both physically and mentally – and motivated to perform at their best
What is Metrifit?
Metrifit helps coaches get to know their athletes, and helps athletes get ready to perform. It is a simple, intuitive and effective approach to monitoring looking at how the ‘small picture’ of an athlete’s daily habits, shapes the ‘big picture’ of match day performance. Metrifit prides itself on its user-friendly interface and advocates a simple effective approach that doesn’t overwhelm the athlete or the coaching/staff member. It is easy to implement, and the data is easily accessible ensuring that the coach can act on the information provided to improve both individuals and teams. The role that an athlete’s lifestyle can have on their performance should never be underestimated and giving the athlete an active role in this monitoring process is key to Metrifit’s approach.
Among those using the Metrifit system is Erik Helland, Director of Strength & Conditioning at the University of Wisconsin
Metrifit has a very strong educational component. With the information we get, I am able to clearly understand the habits and behaviors of our athletes, and how they may be impacting performance. We talk about the importance of good “habits” continuously, and this is a way to demonstrate the correlation of good habits, to good performance outcomes. I am able to address specific issues that our athletes are experiencing in a timely and precise fashion
How it works
We know how busy coaches and athletes are and we strive for simplicity that results in effective action. With this in mind key features of Metrifit include:-
- A mobile web app for ease of use for athletes – very little time is required from the athlete to input their daily well-being questionnaire and enter session RPE information after training/competition
- Focus on unique design to get input quickly and efficiently
- Easy to action traffic light visual reports for both athletes and coaches
- Ready to perform score based on analytical modelling
- Seamless communication through our Coaches corner, messaging and alerts system
- Athlete profiling and overview of team health and well-being
Modules include:-
- Daily Well-being and Session RPE with analytical models to derive ready to perform (RTP) scores
- Traffic Light Reports
- Individualized Reports and feedback delivered to your athletes’ library as a PDF report using our Report Builder module
- Athlete Library
- Analytics and deviations from norm offering individualized feedback
- Communication through Coaches Corner, Athlete Library, Messaging and Alerts Notifications
- Upload facility for test results and other objective information such as GPS
- Coach Performance and Review delivering timely and individualized feedback
- Athlete profiling and analysis using information from key validated questionnaires
- Continual improvements from ongoing research
Why Monitor?
If we look at some of the factors that affect performance, such as sleep, nutrition, training and stress, there is endless research in relation to the importance of getting these right.
Quite simply, monitoring improves an athlete’s performance through a combination of several factors. For example:
- Monitoring an athlete’s training program helps ensure they are in the best possible condition to train. This, in turn, leads to a competitive edge
- Monitoring gives coaches the opportunity to construct individualized training programs and optimize the prescription of training load and recovery
- Monitoring assists in identifying such potential problems as injury, illness, and burnout. Each of these factors can hamper an athlete’s ability to train consistently. If they can avoid missing training sessions, they will be better prepared to achieve success
- Monitoring also develops an athlete’s self-awareness and accountability, giving them a greater sense of responsibility for their well-being. With access to relevant data, the athlete has a greater understanding of how their own body functions
Consequently, they have increased focus to follow the correct program and a greater sense of motivation and confidence.
Tips to follow when implementing a monitoring system
Using software to help with athlete self-reporting can be a bit daunting for coaches and staff who have very busy schedules and may not be overly familiar with technology.
Some useful tips to get started:-
Start simple and build complexity as you need it
Don’t try and do too much too soon. It is better to start slowly and fully use the information provided than try to collect too much and act on nothing. It is tempting to want to have a full bells and whistles monitoring system from the word go. This works fine in the business world where you are desk based and have time and staff to go through everything in detail. In the sports world monitoring is meant to be an aid to training and competition performance but obviously a lot more time is spent on the field/pitch/court/pool and time is of the essence. The last thing you want to do is overwhelm athletes and coaches and staff. The basics might include daily well-being questionnaire and session RPE. If you can get everyone on board with that and get good compliance you have some invaluable information and you can build on from there increasing complexity and functionality as you require it and can act on it.
Feedback
It is critical to give feedback to your athletes. Most athletes like to feel that they are being listened to and that the effort they are putting into inputting information is actually looked at and used by coaches and staff to provide actionable feedback. – this could be as simple as a conversation to find out more about a stress issue. If athletes realize that the information they input is used to invoke change they will buy into it more easily. Metrifit provides a simple ‘report builder’ to allow you to build report templates, provide individualized feedback and package this in a PDF file delivered to the athletes’ library.
Educate
In order to get maximum benefit from Metrifit it is essential to spend some time educating your players. For example, they may or may not be familiar with the session RPE method. Printing out a basic chart with easy to understand descriptions that are relevant to them can help ensure this accurately reflects their perceived exertion. Explain why you are using it and the research that proves its value. If you are using a monitoring system just because some other team is using it with no clear objective of what you want to get out of it, it is hard to provide essential feedback to your team. Metrifit’s daily traffic light reporting, reporting over time and analytics looking at deviations from normal behavior helps coaches/staff see areas of concern within their team and keep track of team training loads to help avoid sudden spikes in training. If athletes are not with you all the time and involved in other teams and/or other sports their information can help keep you up to date with their training programs and well-being and you are then able to take this into consideration when they are with you or when you are prescribing training programs.
Set expectations
It is very important to set a minimum standard at the start for your athletes. And it is important in the initial phases to monitor and manage this to help everyone get on board. It takes some time to form a habit – often longer than the 21 days quoted by many – and it is easy to forget to fill in your daily questionnaire initially. Use alert notifications or calendar reminders to help with this and appoint a staff member to be responsible for checking who has logged and who hasn’t in the initial weeks. It’s important first of all to have the buy-in of all staff. If your Strength & Conditioning coach has bought in but your physio/athletic trainer/medical staff have not, then you have a problem before you start. Getting all athletes on board can initially be difficult and it is a good idea to try and pinpoint some leaders within the group to help encourage this in a positive way
Communicate
In our experience, effective use of a communication portal to centralize all important information greatly helps with buy-in and compliance. If athletes are logging into the app to view important information, it is easier for them to see it as an essential part of their routine. Metrifit provides its own in-built messaging portal to allow you to message individually or to a group. The Coaches Corner provides a facility to form your own library for each group on the system. Posts can be categorized for easy retrieval and pictures can be loaded to help built the team spirit.
Find out more
Everyone has the will to win, it’s only those with the discipline to prepare that actually win
– Bobby Knight, NCAA Basketball Coach
Whether your use of Metrifit is to have a highly accurate reflection of acute to chronic work-load ratios to make training/competition decisions, to empower student-athletes to be reflective and take charge of their health and wellness, or as a basis to engage in conversation with your athletes thereby demonstrating you care about them as individuals, Metrifit simply works. It meets kids where they reside—on their mobile phones and through technology and is quick, easy, and habit-forming to use.
Find out more in our short Introducing Metrifit video or email us at to arrange a call or free demo.
Please share this post so others may benefit.
Follow @metrifit
References
How Long Does it Actually Take to Form a New Habit? (Backed by Science) by James Clear
The importance of knowing when an athlete has reached load limit | Metrifit
Challenges to Effective Athlete Monitoring are Easily Overcome | Metrifit