Sport Psychology Tactics - Understanding Health Technology & Athlete Performance
About the Author
Ben Foodman is a licensed psychotherapist & performance specialist. He owns his private practice located in Charlotte North Carolina where he specializes in working with athletes to help them overcome mental blocks (the yips), PTSD, ADD / ADHD and achieve flow states through the techniques of Brainspotting & Neurofeedback. If you are interested in services, use the link here! Enjoy the article below!
Introduction: The Truth Behind Health Technology & Athlete Performance
In the world of professional sports, athletes and coaches are looking for any advantage they can have over their competition. Whether that is through a new form of physical or mental training, there is no stone that these performers won’t turn over to accomplish their goals. Because there is a huge demand for performance improvement-based resources, an entire industry of sport performance enhancement technology has flooded the market with new tools to try and help athletes reach their peak potential. While there are many great developments in this space, coaches, athletes and general managers oftentimes are unable to differentiate between what is legitimate versus illegitimate sports technology.
This is largely due to several factors: the vast majority of coaches, GMs and athletes are unfamiliar with the actual science behind these tools and oftentimes will overlook simple/old school approaches that are just as effective. Based on my experience, while these tools can be very helpful they are often more harmful than beneficial. So for this issue of the Training Report I want to review the science behind some of this health technology and the connection it has to athlete performance. I will first examine some of the negatives associated with these wearables and then I will discuss how these tools can be used both properly and in a more cost-effective manner.
Part I. How Accurate Are Fitness Wearables?
There are varying degrees of opinions amongst sport psychologists and sport scientists about the accuracy of watches and fitness wearables. If you were to research Google scholar or other academic sources, you will find positive and negative reviews of different wearables. In the NSCA’S Essentials of Sport Science, Chapter 10. authored by Andrew Murray and Jo Clubb, the authors give a great perspective on how athletes and sport psychologists should think about the integration of these tools in the following excerpt: For practitioners to have confidence in the data produced by tracking systems, they should have an understanding of the level of quality assurance in any outcome measures. The information provided should meet quality control specifications, including, but not limited to validity and reliability. It is paramount that users be aware of the collection errors associated with each technology, along with having the ability to critique the methodologies and identify limitations of research relating to positional and tracking systems. With this understanding, practitioners will be well informed of the steps required to suitably analyze and interpret such data within the applied setting.
The authors continue: Despite the importance of measurement precision (i.e., reliability), the uptake of such technologies tends to preempt the publication of validation work. This ‘early-adopter’ approach is perhaps not surprising given the competitive nature of professional sports, along with the privacy of manufacturers’ internal validation and ‘white papers’ (not peer-reviewed) and consumer skepticism about such reports. This has led to researchers and sport scientists undertaking external validation studies on their own or with non-profit third parties (independent research) or both. So, what should coaches, athletes and GMs take away from this position? The answer: Do not build your training system exclusively around the data and recommendations that come from these new technologies. In my applied experience (and as pointed out in the excerpt), too many athlete development programs rush to integrate these wearables in place of ‘old-fashioned’ approaches. Sometimes, old-fashioned sport science is the best approach because it has been tested over and over again in multiple settings. What would be a good example of an old-school approach that has been replaced by new technologies: injury-risk modeling.
Part II. The Truth About Fitness Trackers & Injury Risk Models
There are a plethora of new wearables and technologies that claim to help with injury prevention. In some cases, there are successful examples where this occurred. But the reason why there was success in these cases may not be exclusively due to the technology, but rather multiple factors. First let’s dive into understanding what the injury risk model is and why that is relevant for this discussion. Per the NSCA’S Essentials of Sport Science, Chapter 19. by authors Johann Windt and Tim Gabbett: The classic model that has informed injury prevention research and practice since the early 1990s is the 1992 sequence of prevention model by Dr. van Meechelen and colleagues. The model can be summarized as follows; 1. What injuries are occurring? Establish the extent of the problem through injury surveillance and epidemiological work. 2. Why are these injuries happening? Identify relevant risk factors through etiological research. 3. Develop and implement strategies that address causal factors. Design preventative strategies that address modifiable risk factors identified in step 2. 4. See if the intervention worked. Reevaluate the injury problem as in step 1 to determine whether the preventative strategy was effective. This narrative gives us an old-fashioned approach to dealing with injury prevention. So how do modern technologies mislead athletes and teams into thinking that they are more efficient than these approaches?
Company A pitches a wearable that can track sleep and recovery scores. The data from these devices is uploaded onto a spreadsheet that a sport psychologist or a lead strength & conditioning specialist is managing. They see the recovery scores and then make determinations about workloads that will be adjusted per individual athlete scores from the data. This sounds fancy and efficient but there is just one problem with this scenario…no one ever spoke to the athlete about how they were feeling in comparison to the data. From my own applied experience this is far more common than people may care to believe. There are some metrics that these devices can accurately measure, but if we are going to use sleep quality as a measurement of recovery to assess injury risk, then one of the best methods we can use is to directly ask the athlete how they feel their quality of sleep is. In essence, direct feedback from the source is both the simplest, most cost-effective approach available. Part of the reason professionals pitching these technologies to teams promote their approaches with such intensity is that they have to find fancy methods to justify their funding, with the misconception being ‘if it is that simple, then why do we need you?’ With all that being said, let’s review a more effective way to leverage wearables combining new school tactics with old-fashioned training methodologies.
Part III. Strategies For Data Analysis Athlete Performance
One of my favorite markers to measure with athletes is Heart Rate Variability. Heart rate variability (HRV) reflects the time between heartbeats, it directly relates to the electrical activity stimulating the heart, specifically the sinoatrial node (the heart's natural pacemaker). Per the NSCA’s Essentials of Sport Science, Chapter 14 authored by Joel Jamieson: Heart rate variability is widely acknowledged as a general marker of health, wellness, and fitness as its use has become more common through a number of wearables and mobile apps. compared to HR, HRV measurement requires additional data processing and more specialized monitoring devices that are capable of measuring and transmitting beat-to-beat intervals with a high degree of accuracy. The use of chest strap monitors (ECG) has been widely validated in the literature, though a limited number of PPG sensor have also been shown to be generally accurate enough for HRV measurements.
When working with athletes there is a standardized protocol that I use where I have found a high degree of efficiency in being able to reduce the chance of injury for athletes. The first step is to have athletes wear a chest strap that can measure HRV. My favorite device is the Polar H10 (some athlete populations may need to wear a wristwatch due to sport costume constraints such as the fire suit in the cockpit of a NASCAR stock car, or an NFL player’s chest pads). Whatever device the athlete uses, we then collect several weeks of information making sure that we also categorize the data (e.g. practice vs competition). Finally, after we have enough data sets to work with, we administer a simple psychometric questionnaire that assesses physical and mental recovery states. This dual approach gives athlete the best chance to observe trends in their recovery patterns, uses simple technology and old-fashioned approaches while also acquiring cutting-edge results! Whatever approach athletes and coaches want to use in regard to how to integrate new technologies, they just need to make sure that they don’t abandon simple strategies that have proven to be effective. Keep it simple stupid goes right more often than it goes wrong!
Note To Reader:
If you are an athlete reading this segment of the TRAINING REPORT, hopefully this content was helpful! I put the Training Report together because I felt like many of the discussions on issues such as the Yips/mental blocks, strength training & other subject matter on athlete performance concepts were really missing the mark on these ideas (e.g. how trauma is the direct cause of the Yips). If you are interested in learning more, make sure to subscribe below for when I put out new content on issues related to sport psychology & athlete performance! Also, if you are looking to work with a mental performance specialist, you are in the right place! USE THIS LINK to reach out to me to see if my services are the right fit for your goals!
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