For anyone who has spent even a little time around competitive sports, there are a handful of phrases that should ring familiar. Somewhere near the top of the list: “Practice how you want to play.” Sports generates an inordinate amount of pithy coachspeak, but that sentiment is actually a valuable pearl of wisdom – one backed by evidence-based performance science.
In fact, it’s the main driver behind Sportlight Technology’s development of its Peak Demand module, one of the latest features offered for use with Sportlight’s LiDAR- and AI-powered performance-monitoring system. Performing at the highest levels of sports during match play requires untold hours of training and an enormous athletic capacity. If consistent peak performance indeed requires a similar training output, it’s critical for practitioners to know what those levels are for each individual athlete, as well as have the ability to manage the frequency and duration of those peak outputs. This is where Sportlight’s Peak Demand can play a vital role for clubs in all sports, at various competition levels. Here’s how it works:
Peak Demand: Monitoring the Key Moments
With the addition of Peak Demand analysis, Sportlight’s tracking system allows practitioners, coaches and other key club personnel to monitor in-depth data isolating the most demanding passages of match play for an individual athlete. Providing league-wide rankings, position specific peak demand capacity and repeatability, the system supports drill design, return-to-play programming. Although users may derive certain insights that could influence match tactics and in-game decisions, Peak Demand has the most to offer clubs in training settings.
Peak Demand gives clubs deeper insights into the most intense moments within match play, allowing them to see individual data that refers to the scenarios and movements required most from an athlete in the context of the game. This is mission-critical for practitioners and coaches. With the ability to identify those key moments – as well as when they happen and why – a club’s training staff can keep a close eye on load management and monitor the progress of a player coming back from injury. But they also empower coaches to develop drills that target peak performance in those moments, providing data that can assist in replicating in-game scenarios that call for peak demand.
Training Day: Making the Most of Peak Demand
The truth is, no matter the motivation of an athlete or the particular style of that player’s coach, the monotony of near-daily training sessions over the course of a months-long season tends to limit peak output in practice – even in moments that would typically demand the most effort from an athlete.
But with Peak Demand, practitioners and coaches have access to objective data that can help them measure the various outputs of a player against his previous levels, those of his teammates and even those of his counterparts across a league. Rather than serving as a policing tool for holding players accountable for their practice efforts. Peak Demand was designed to illuminate when and where players are required to dig deepest. With comprehensive comparative data at their fingertips, coaches can make informed decisions about formulating practice plans and building drills that push their players to their limits, readying them to deliver maximum output in the game situations that call for it.
These moments can vary in length, with epochs lasting as many as 10 minutes. Clubs receive the data post-match on the portal, allowing for quick pivots and nearly instant adaptations based on new information. With Sportlight’s Peak Demand, clubs put essential data in the hands of their coaches, who can then ensure that they’re constructing training programs that demand game speed for game situations. Practice how you want to play.
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