10 February 2007

monitor readiness to perform with software

Fitness becomes a matter of computing@The Australian

While the Sydney Swans were reaping the benefits of their Italian job, St Kilda was developing software of its own in partnership with Athletic Logic, a Sydney based IT company.

The Saints' software is purpose designed to keep more players on the field for more of the season.

The difference with the Sydney system - or the reams of information collected and analysed by Adelaide Crows coach Neil Craig and his sports science team - is that the players enter the data themselves, after every training session, via a touch-pad screen on one of four computer tablets.

Whenever a St Kilda player finishes a training session, he must tell the computer how he is feeling, how well he is sleeping, and answer other questions about his general well-being.

This subjective information is then collated with more objective measures of weight loss, training loads, distances run and heart-rate fluctuations to give an overall picture of how each footballer's body is standing up to the demands of training.

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