How Unifying Data Will Impact Athlete Performance
Original article: Evolution of the Athlete, Bigger Faster Stronger Presented by Gatorade.
Today’s athletes are faster, stronger and push themselves farther than ever before. A 2015 paper called the Evolution of the Athlete, by Gatorade, details how modern athletes compare to their predecessors. It’s a journey through time and sporting codes, comparing athletes today with ones from 10–60 years ago. The paper focuses on the changes in performance and career longevity.
These performance gains are not only due to the advancements in sporting technology but to the personalisation of sports science. Today sports training has widened its focus to include an understanding of the individual biochemical makeup of an athlete. Now sports scientists work on helping athletes play harder, faster and longer with fewer injuries.
Many teams invest in tracking technologies like GPS to understand how players get injured. They track load because knowing when to rest players helps avoid fatigue, a major contributor to injury. Systems like catapult which measure load can alert coaches when a player begins to fatigue. But how does fatigue interact with hydration? The sporting world is starting to understand and accept that sleep, nutrition, hydration and stress will affect a player’s performance. The next step is bringing this information together so that it can be viewed in relation to each other.
Collecting data is important but along with the benefits come the challenges of transforming it into insights. This is where unifying data is important. Gathering data in separate systems denies teams the ability to see how the data fits together. The Gatorade paper goes on to speculate that a technology that unlocks this will be the next evolutionary leap in sport.
We know this to be true. Our products, such as SportsMed Elite and Baseline, do this. They bring vast data inputs from different sources together so you can be sure you’re seeing the whole picture of the team. Our product team is made up of sports scientists with years of experience working in professional sports. They have spent their careers focused on improving performance and understanding the challenges that go along with it. They know how to reveal actionable insights that give sporting teams a winning edge.
As sport becomes more competitive and we enter an era of advantage optimisation all sporting teams must understand how everything fits together and what will give them the performance gains they need.
Vikki
Chief Marketing Officer
Vikki O’Shannessey is a vastly experienced marketing practitioner with 25 years of working with global, industry-leading technology corporations in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. Vikki brings to SportsMed Elite a track record of accomplishment in planning and delivering integrated, multi-channel marketing campaigns and is instrumental in shaping the business’ strategic direction, corporate partnerships and new business acquisition.
