Topic

The development of information technologies has led to wide ranging improvements in many industries. The world of sport is no exception, with information technology being used to collect, store, share and retrieve data in sports of all kinds in a variety of different ways (Liebermann et al. 2002; Morris 2017). With this influx of information, it has changed how individual and team sports are played and trained for.

Performing sport specific skills effectively is what separates elite athletes at the top of their sport from athlete’s who are not as successful or novices just beginning their sporting journey (Hall 2014). When watching a top athlete perform, the general consensus amongst those watching is that the athlete makes it look easy. However, what we are seeing is countless hours and years of repetition and hard work, supported no doubt in this day and age by biomechanical analysis, a way of studying movement through measuring kinematics and force production using a variety of information technology systems to record, display and share data (Hall 2014; Liebermann et al. 2002).

Another benefit of using information technology for performance gains is the large role it plays in athlete monitoring. The accumulation of data acquired from each athlete can be immense, from skinfold measurements, nutritional requirements, performance markers and other kinematic data, it would be impossible to keep track of without systems and applications designed to house all of this information for easy viewing. With a click of a button coaches can access the accumulated data of all their athletes in one place, making it easy to keep track of each athlete to ensure that the athlete’s individual training needs are always being met.

This data is accumulated through the use of monitoring devices, systems and applications which are able to track and record an athlete’s information and status. Programs then formulate the data into statistical charts and other easy to read formats which are then used to track, compare and monitor an athlete’s progression. Whilst many people are familiar with the Fitbit and various health applications on the phone which can track energy expenditure and sleeping patterns, many elite sporting teams and coaches have turned to an athlete monitoring system called Omegawave.

The Omegawave is an athlete monitoring system which is capable of determining the readiness level of an athlete to specific training modalities (Morris 2017). It does this by measuring heart rate variability among other measurement variables, which studies have shown to be a good indication of an athlete’s recovery status (Pichot et al. 2000; Morris 2017). The data gathered is instantly synchronised into the Omegawave cloud and processed for ease of readability so coaches are able to decipher the data and alter athlete training loads if deemed necessary. This is important because overtraining for a lot of sports is a serious problem as it reduces the capacity of an athlete to perform well, and can lead to athlete burnout and an increased risk of injury (Kellmann 2010). The Omegawave system prevents this from occurring, leading to greater training consistency and as a result, greater improvement which results in superior sporting performances.

All in all, consistency and clever training progression is the key to great performances, without the various forms of information technology of today, many coaches would be left trying to figure out what they think they know for performance progression rather than what they do.