{"id":1512,"date":"2016-11-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-athlete-performance-and-welfare-data-the-challenges-and-how-to-overcome-them\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:46","slug":"leaders-virtual-roundtables-athlete-performance-welfare-data-challenges-overcome","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-athlete-performance-welfare-data-challenges-overcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaders Virtual Roundtables: Athlete Performance and Welfare Data – the Challenges and How to Overcome them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n Nov 29, 2016 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Leaders Virtual Roundtables: Athlete Performance and Welfare Data – the Challenges and How to Overcome them<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Data & Innovation<\/a>, Human Performance<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/leaders-virtual-roundtables-athlete-performance-welfare-data-challenges-overcome\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n
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The First Online Meeting of Leaders Performance Institute Members on September 15 2016.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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\"Intel_logo_png_transparent_huge.png<\/h4>\n

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The first Leaders Virtual Roundtable, in conjunction with our partners Intel, took place on 15 September. This inaugural invite-only internet gathering brought together members of the Leaders Performance Institute \u2013 heads of athletic performance, sports scientists, physiotherapists, psychologists \u2013 in Major League Baseball, international rugby, tennis and cycling, as well as US collegiate sport, to discuss how they use data to gain that performance edge.<\/h4>\n

Transferring the chat to desktops and laptops did not diminish the customary intimacy of a Leaders Roundtable nor the candidness of the participants in these topic-focused discussions. Here is the executive summary of the dialogue.<\/h4>\n
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The Participants<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Steve Gera<\/strong>, Co-Founder, Winning Algorithms [Moderator]<\/p>\n

Dan Guillemette<\/strong>, Lead Physiotherapist, Team Sky<\/p>\n

Arthur Mearlender<\/strong>, Director of Clinical Research, University of Nebraska<\/p>\n

Neil Potts<\/strong>, Head of Athletic Performance, Scottish Rugby<\/p>\n

Marc Strickland<\/strong>, Sports Psychologist, Oakland Athletics<\/p>\n

Jason Vescovi<\/strong>, Lead Sport Science & Medicine Program, Tennis Canada<\/p>\n

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  1. \n

    The Agenda<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The practitioners at the centre of the discussion laid out some of the challenges presented by the use of data and detailed their efforts to overcome those obstacles. The use of data is causing disruption throughout sport and the roundtable also laid out the most pressing questions posed by the use of data looking ahead.<\/p>\n

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      How Datasets are Used<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      For athlete welfare<\/strong><\/h4>\n

      Athlete welfare is at the heart of data usage. Datasets are used across sport to measure the wellness of athletes in training and competition, both in the long and short term. Nutrition, hydration, sleep quality and mood were the most common areas of interest and these were measured in athletes on a daily basis and discussed with broader high performance teams. Beyond these metrics, heartrate variability measuring is common place, although it has limited value in a sport, such as rugby, where the data gleaned is considered too \u2018noisy\u2019 to add any value to the wellness scores of individual athletes.<\/p>\n

      Datasets are also used to assist athletic development in areas such as sustaining power outputs, physical robustness, and aerobic capacity.<\/p>\n

      For Building a Performance Strategy<\/strong><\/h4>\n

      Performance optimisation and athlete availability are the twin goals of high performance teams and datasets are also used by coaching staffs to plan competition strategies with regard to individual athletes. Data can be used to determine if an athlete should take a more or less prominent role on any given competition day.<\/p>\n

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        Challenges to that Usage<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Geographical Distance and Disparate Aims When Collecting Data<\/strong><\/h4>\n

        There are a series of challenges posed by data usage that risk undermining performance. Teams and organisations at elite level are often dispersed over broad geographical areas, which limits physical contact between departments. It also presents a constant challenge to the daily collection of data and the consistency of the data collected.<\/p>\n

        Moreover, when different teams within an organisation have different requirements of their data; a Major League Baseball team has divergent demands from the franchise\u2019s youth development teams. The integration of data up and down a sports organisation is a pressing concern. There is also the matter of how datasets are coded to provide meaning and insight.<\/p>\n

        Cultural Resistance to Data Collection<\/strong><\/h4>\n

        Disparate staff tend to go hand in hand with disparate cultures; some staff may not be steeped in the systematic collection of data practised at various sports organisations. Consequently, some athletes may not be fully aware of its importance to them as individuals or their team.<\/p>\n

        Cultural resistance goes beyond national differences, as domestic athletes need to be assured that data will not be used to undermine them in any sense. By the same token, coaches need to understand that data will be used to inform their intuition and experience, not undermine it.<\/p>\n

        When Thresholds are Not Accurately Set<\/strong><\/h4>\n

        The question of thresholds loomed large and this posed problems when teams are unable to ask the right performance questions of their data. Coaches had been known to make ill-informed decisions when their data suggested one thing and ocular evidence another.<\/p>\n

        There was also a reference to an occasion when the thresholds applied to men in a team sport were automatically applied to women, despite the obvious physiological differences and needs.<\/p>\n

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          Solutions and Outcomes<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Mooted solutions to geographical remoteness in data gathering was an integrated system that enabled athletes to download training plans and upload their data to a centralised location on a daily basis. In such a scheme, coaches have access to these individual records, bar confidential medical information. This has enabled broader performance teams to arrive at well-informed decisions regarding performance goals.<\/p>\n

          Such an approach has not only reduced the number of poor decisions being made by coaching staff but it has worked to break down the silos that can often form in different departments of performance teams. Assumptions begin to be cast aside as staff begin to ask better, more targeted and pertinent questions.<\/p>\n

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            Further Questions<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Data usage is an ongoing area of development within sport, with some teams only now becoming acquainted with wearable technologies and the like. For all the different stages at which they found themselves and their organisations, participants at the roundtable posed a number of further questions.<\/p>\n

            Who Owns Data?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

            Most pressing was the matter of data ownership. It is not clear if the data should belong to the individual athlete, their team, or even the league in which they compete. The ramifications of this will have a knock-on effect not only on confidentiality and any ethical issues pertaining to the individual, but also matters of player trading and movement.<\/p>\n

            How Public Should Data Be?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

            Another question raised was the extent to which data should be made public. All sports broadcasts in the modern era are accompanied by graphics depicting datasets but there is no consensus on where limits should be set.<\/p>\n

            As a corollary to the publication of datasets, the roundtable raised the concern of \u2018armchair experts\u2019 in the media with no or few formal qualifications who could use data to drive narratives that run counter to the wellbeing of the athlete.<\/p>\n

            It was also noted that the professionalisation of youth sports in North America has led to situation where adolescent athletes see the measurements of mature athletes and apply those thresholds to their own training and performance despite the inevitable physiological differences. As a consequence, there is genuine concern for the wellbeing of young athletes in that region.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

            \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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