STATSports
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A really interesting approach to conditioning from Hong Kong China Rugby 7s’ rehab group here. You’ll notice the players are doing track based conditioning with their mouths taped - meaning the running is completed using nasal breathing only. As intensity & physical strain increases, athletes naturally want to switch towards mouth breathing to increase ventilation. Restricting them to nasal breathing adds another constraint to the session, encouraging more controlled breathing. The players are also wearing our conductive heart rate vests, allowing GPS and HR to be monitored together throughout the session, giving staff a view of the external running load as well as the internal physiological response to the session. When rehabbing, that relationship can be particularly useful when the goal is to create a conditioning stimulus without unnecessarily increasing running exposure. The tape essentially adds another layer to that stimulus, without asking the player to run further or faster. A pretty unique way of adding another constraint to a conditioning session, depending on the adaptation you’re after. 7s rugby is already well known as one of the most physically demanding sports around, but this is something else.
STATSports135,225 Aufrufe • vor 26 Tagen
Mauricio Pochettino's use of the Gacon Test in pre-season gets dropped regularly by ex players of his. Kyle Walker says in this clip that Dele Alli was the only player who could complete the test in his time at Tottenham. Basically, it's an intermittent shuttle run with the distance increasing at each stage, but the time to complete staying the same (45 seconds). We've included an explainer in the post. A full completion is 5000m in total which is all 25 stages.
STATSports207,840 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Why do Liverpool’s fitness coaches incorporate movements like this into a drill? Looks funny, right? Likely because: 86% of sprints in the Premier League are curved. 62% of sprints in the Premier League include torso rotation (ie scanning for space, opponents).
STATSports1,483,202 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
Federico Chiesa hit his fastest top speed in two years during that 50m sprint to stop a certain Sunderland winner on Wednesday night. The last time he clocked close to that speed, he was playing for Juventus. Performance and Medical staff's jobs have never been harder at the elite end of the game. The intensity and the lack of recovery time between games means players are generally walking an injury tightrope every week. But Chiesa couldn't perform a sprint like this and not get injured unless the fitness coaches at Liverpool were first class at what they do. Hamstring strains are on the rise and account for 24% of all injuries in men’s pro football. The majority of HSIs occur when players run over 25 km/h and above 80% of their maximal speed, and present recurrence rates of 18%. Interestingly, when this injury occurs during a game, it has recently been shown that it is preceded by a short period (5 min) of an unusual amount of running at more than 21 km/h. One of the best injury mitigation tools at your disposal is to make sure that you hit >90-95% of your max speed regularly in training so, when asked to do so in a game under fatigue, you've loaded your hamstrings to take the demands.
STATSports491,387 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten
Brentford made the preseason 1K Test infamous. 1000m (10 lengths of a pitch up and back) as fast as you can. The Premier League record is reportedly 2mins 57seconds. We asked one of our Marketing team could he beat it? He didn’t just beat it - he smashed it by 13seconds.
STATSports550,563 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
Now, this is an interesting one. After years of Lactate testing and 6MRT time trials under Jurgen Klopp and Arne Slot, respectively, Andoni Iraola is doing things differently during pre-season testing at Liverpool. Normally, most clubs use tests like the Yo-Yo, a 1600m continuous run, the 2K Test, a 1K Test, a Bronco or something similar - but we've not seen this one used before, ever. Essentially, it's 4 x 30sec interval runs combined, with shuttle runs included at the start of each interval, followed by a longer "aerobic" based run. The objective doesn't seem to be to measure the players' MAS or VO2max. But within the exercise, the coaches are testing the players' aerobic power, agility, change of direction, running economy, and recovery from repeated changes in pace. We know Iraola likes to play a high intensity, highly transitional style of football, so a test like this does feel in line with his aerobic demands. Within the training edit posted by Liverpool, heart rate is mentioned a couple of times, so it does stand to reason that they are trying to gauge max heart rate and heart rate variability within the test. Our GPS tech, combined with the heart rate monitors, is being used to monitor the players’ external load, and how they’re responding to it internally. Either way, it's an interesting concept seemingly predicated upon age-old interval running exercises.
STATSports84,043 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
James McClean finishing joint first in Wrexham’s pre-season YoYo Test at 35-years-old. Some athlete.
STATSports889,544 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren
Some interesting work being applied in Manchester Utd training already by Ruben Amorim and his staff. A tactical attack v defence drill, including a transitional element involving a 30-40m recovery run on a “ball is lost” trigger. Interesting given the research shows that 30-40% of high intensity runs in the Premier League is recovery running (Bradley, 2022) You can see Amorim’s coaches on the sideline using our Sonra Live iPad, which allows for each player’s physical load to be closely monitored across a range of metrics, including max speeds, high speed distance, sprint distance, etc.
STATSports455,954 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
Some interesting comments from Arne Slot yesterday on how Liverpool are managing the load of their younger players. According to the Howden Injury Index, under 21 players have consistently recorded the most severe injuries in recent seasons - meaning they spend more time sidelined per injury than any other age group. In the Premier League specifically, the average time missed per injury for under 21s has risen by around 187% compared to three years earlier. The report suggests this is as a result of increased physical demands on players. With 19 year old Jayden Danns’ issues with stress fractures as a perfect example, Liverpool have adjusted how they’re handling other promising younger players like Rio Ngumoha. Slot explained that this includes giving Rio two off pitch days per week to help manage his overall load - reducing cumulative demands while still allowing him to adapt and develop physically. Might explain why we haven’t seen more of the 17 year old, despite how promising he has looked. Good to see clubs adapting with a more calculated approach to player load, rather than repeating mistakes.
STATSports188,901 Aufrufe • vor 8 Monaten
Interesting to see Liverpool incorporating recovery sprint specific triggers in their MSG training games. In Amorim’s drill, the trigger is a coach’s whistle to simply sprint back into position. In Liverpool’s version, defenders must recover and stop a goal attempt.
STATSports341,397 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
Full pitch tempo runs at Wolves pre-season training in Marbella. Different variations to this in terms of volume/intensity, but sounds like they’re working to approx 20secs baseline to baseline. Multiple reps. Wolves head coach, Gary O’Neil, at the front of the line 🫡
STATSports197,324 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren
Always loved this 1v1 finishing drill from Liverpool’s training camp in Austria a few years back. - 3 unopposed attempts on goal - 3 opposed attempts - Focus on accel/decel/COD to evade defender - live gps monitoring w/thresholds Salah still so good in these situations.
STATSports109,592 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
Thomas Frank and his staff have taken the 1K Test to Tottenham. It’s essentially a time trial over 1000m (10 lengths of a full pitch), up and back as fast as you can. The idea is that your MAS (maximal aerobic speed) is then calculated by 1000 ÷ time in seconds (e.g., 3:10 = 1000 ÷ 190 = 5.26 m/s). Pro players will generally look to hit between 3mins 20 and 3mins 40 seconds. As you can hear on the clip on the next slide, Dom Solanke managed 3min 28secs, which would give him a MAS of 4.8 m/s. By the end of preseason, Spurs would test the players again and look to improve their MAS scores with targeted training interventions.
STATSports74,381 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr