6 Insight: surveillance or support?

The loss of valuable training preparation time through overtraining, injury or worse can be prevented via effective monitoring. In preparation for the 2016 Rio Olympics, the English Institute of Sport developed an app as part of their Personal Data Management System (PDMS).

This app collected an athlete’s personal data, thirteen dimensions of which are shown in Figure 4. For example, you can see how training load, health, recovery, sleep, hydration and life stress are all included in one dashboard. Quantitative and qualitative information is collected on an athlete’s ‘Availability’ to train, the ‘Effort’ they were able to exert and how they feel afterwards during ‘Recovery’. This is an attempt to assemble a range of valuable information in one place so coach and other support staff can accurately monitor an athlete’s well-being.

Note: RPE = Rate of Perceived Exertion

Maximise

Figure 4 Thirteen dimensions for monitoring individual training load, recovery and welfare

Show description|Hide description

The figure is a screenshot of the monitoring tool used to assemble multiple monitoring data over time. It shows each day in the month of April progressing from 1st to 30th of the month from left to right. Each day is represented by a vertical bar extending up above the date. Data for two items is shown from April 10-30th: ‘Sleep quality’ and ‘general health’ with slight variations each day plotted on the vertical day bars. The resulting curve in the line shows a very slight improvement of both measures until April 19th and then a slight decline thereafter. The most significant part of the screen shot is the range of other measures that can also be tracked in addition to two above. These are shown in a key at the top of the screen shot and these additional measures are listed: sleep duration, energy level, muscle soreness, life stress, training load, body weight, session duration, rate of perceived exertion, completed session, hydration and resting heart rate.

Figure 4 Thirteen dimensions for monitoring individual training load, recovery and welfare

Activity 5 Athlete load and recovery monitoring

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

Watch the video below and answer the following:

1. List three reasons why it is claimed this app may help with prevention of overtraining.
2. How much does this app rely on athletes engaging with its ethos? Or, is it a means of the organisation exerting undue surveillance and pressure?

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 3

EMMA WIGGS (KL2 Paracanoe Gold medallist Rio 2016)

I think PDMS has been a real game-changer for us on a day to day basis.

DR PAUL JACKSON (EIS Deputy Director of Medical Services)

The great strength of it is that it's got the medical records and the athlete derived data and the training data all in one place and it can all be mapped against each other.

CAROLINE LANDER (EIS Lead Research Scientist)

To give sports much more performance based information and pictures and patterns around what's occuring in their sport.

CLAIRE WILLIAMS (EIS Performance Analyst for British Gymnastics)

So if a competition went particularly well then we can look back and say right okay what was your hydration and what were your energy levels and so we can replicate that in future performances.

BRYONY PAGE (Trampolining Silver medallist Rio 2016)

I still use it now after the games and I'm not building up to a competition, I'm just going through rehab so if you are feeling tired or or fatigued you can tell your coaches and they can adapt the training session for what you need.

JAN BARTU (Performance Director Pentathalon GB)

It's absolutely essential because if you don't have that, in the long term you may end up overtraining or getting an injury. So it is absolutely essential.

JAMIE COOKE (Modern Pentathlon World Cup Gold medalisst 2016)

Since using app, the last twelve to sixteen months have been injury free, so hopefully we can put that down to some some clever, clever decisions.

JAMES CHEESEMAN (Strength and conditioning coach for Pentathalon GB)

The PDMS has been really useful for us as a sport and certainly for me as a practitioner. It's enabled us to tie the team together between the performance coaching team, the athletes and the EIS Sports Medicine team. It played a massive part in us scheduling testing, working together with myself and the performance nutritionist, informing the athletes and the coaches a little bit earlier, and we managed to remove bone stresses from the program last year and that was a big part in that.

EMMA WIGGS

I think PDMS has been crucial in the run-up to Rio in particular with logging our grip strength scores everyday it allowed me to identify when my shoulders might have been a bit tight and get the physio before the problem had actually occurred so it was really crucial in being kind of indicator of a potential injury in the run-up to Rio.

End transcript: Video 3

Video 3

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Discussion

1. These are the three reasons that you may have identified, although you might express them differently or have identified another. First, the app helps in identifying training patterns over time including indicating possible problems associated with overtraining, before they escalate. Second, it is claimed the information allows training to be adapted to individual needs, including fatigue and mood, each day. Third, it perhaps allows strength and conditioning coaches to work with medical and other support staff more holistically and arguably to be more effective.
2. Certainly, the app will only really work if all athletes are honest and complete it regularly. However, for some it might be regarded as too much intrusion and control into their lives and may be perceived as increased pressure. As a thought experiment, you might consider whether this tool would have prevented the ‘going under the radar’ behaviour of Clay (athletics) in Activity 3.

The very app that you have seen in action at the EIS recently came under discussion during a BBC radio programme. This is the focus of the following section.