Wellness
Overview
Our wellness form is intended to capture how the athlete is feeling when they get up in the morning. The expectation is that it is completed EVERY morning (whether training, game or off day) and is filled out honestly. Athletes' honesty typically increases when they see their organization use the data for the benefit of the player.
Q1 - Are you physically and mentally ready to train/play today?
This question puts a responsibility on the player to assess their readiness. If they answer "Yes, I am ready for today's session", regardless of the answers below, they should be prepared to compete at top level.
If they answer "I am somewhat ready. I feel a bit off but manageable", they are looking for support but expecting to be able to fight through. Over time, staff will begin to understand how individual players are conveying information through this answer, but if a player indicates they are somewhat ready, a staff member should be communicating with that player prior to the session.
If they answer "No, I need modifications or rest today", this should indicate that the player will not be able to fully train today. This could be for a player in RTP (return to play protocol), this could be for an injured player or maybe someone who is sick. Again, if a player indicated they need modifications or rest - communication from a staff member prior to any session is critical to building trust with the players that this information is valuable for them to provide.
Q2 - How sore are you feeling today?
This question is intended to provide the athletic trainers and physical trainers with information to better support pre-training preparation. If a user answers "I have little to no soreness - I feel good enough to go with no additional help", then they move to the next question and pre-treatment should be limited.
But if the player indicates they are experiencing "low to moderate" or "high" soreness, they are provided with the ability to share where they are feeling soreness/pain on the body.
It should be shared with the players that indicating they are sore, but not indicating where they are sore, makes it difficult for the team to prepare to help them. This situation is again a powerful way for the organization to support the players by being aware prior to their arrival and connecting with the players to address their soreness prior to any session.
Q3 & Q4 - How was your sleep quality and quantity?
This question provides visibility to how well players are preparing their bodies. The system asks the question of how well the player felt they slept (subjective), but then attempts to balance that with the quantity of sleep (objective), to provide a better picture. We recommend 8 or more hours of sleep for high level athletes on a regular basis to facilitate recovery and enable top level performance throughout the season.
Q5 (Female only) - Are you menstruating?
This is a simple yes or no question to provide visibility. During the first year of tracking data, we have found that there are correlations between cycle timing on some injuries. At this point, the information is available to coach's to better understand their players, but is not used for any additional purposes.
As there has been limited research done on female athletes and this is one of the unique elements of being female, we are collecting this data so our research partners can perform more robust longitudinal studies to determine if organizations should be doing something more to help maximize the performance of female athletes. (NOTE: All research uses only anonymized data.)
Q6 - Which best describes your overall feeling today?
This final question provides the player the ability to share additional details about how they are feeling without having to indicate that something is wrong that will impact their performance. The word choices here are specific (heavy, stiff, tired, irritable, ill/sick, pain). A future update to the platform will provide specific pre-training recommendations based on which word they selected.
Summary
Wellness provides the player the opportunity to share how they are feeling and the organization the opportunity to prepare and address the situation to support the players to perform at the highest level. By collecting and reviewing this data daily - the players begin to learn themselves a bit better, and the organization creates a connection with the players as we all focus on maximizing a player's potential.
Exertion
Overview
Our exertion form is intended to capture RPE (rate of perceived exertion) on a scale of 1 to 10. The expectation is that the player inputs their rating after every training session, and that information provides an input for organizations that are utilizing any sort of periodization model.
Q1 - How hard do you feel your body had to work during the training/game today?
This question asks the athlete to rate how hard the session was for them. The scale is subjective and very much in the mind of the player; however, we have found that over time, the organization will see the players' stabilize in their evaluation as they see sessions that range from very, very light to maximum difficulty over time.
Summary
This question is intended to provide training staff visibility into the player's feelings on the training session's difficulty physically. This data can be leveraged for an input to a periodization model. It can be combined with GPS data to improve understanding of physical load or be used to create a better understanding between the coach's and player's perception of training difficulty. This additional insight helps the organization develop their curriculum and training periodization.