In a highly competitive, peak-level athletic landscape in which injury prevention and career longevity have become critical to championship-level success, Polar has emerged as an industry leader in performance tracking technology.
As top-level athletes strive to remain in-tune with how their bodies react to, respond to and recover from intensive training – both in-season and out – Polar’s Team Pro system and accompanying wrist units, can be a game-changer. That’s not only the case for the athletes themselves, but for the coaches and trainers who monitor activity, on and off the field, along with the team executives who depend upon players remaining healthy over the long grueling season.
Polar Team Pro is a one-of-a-kind tracking system that transforms the way athletes approach their training and impacts how conditioning coaches design programs to push players toward peak performance. Polar Team Solutions, which have been on the market for less than three years, have become a staple for 150 NCAA athletic programs around the country, along with 15 Major League Soccer teams, 13 NFL franchises and with clubs in the NBA, NHL, NASL, and Major League Baseball.
The Polar Team Pro system’s uniqueness was born out of the idea that so much of performance can be measured with just one simple tool. While Polar offers a number of heart rate-based wrist units, the Polar Team Pro system takes performance tracking to a new level. The system remains the only one of its kind in the marketplace that provides the user with both internal and external loading parameter data from a single wearable device.
Polar’s cutting edge technology is weaved into one sensor, which transmits individual performance levels to an iPad and accompanying web service. The transmitter fits across the torso or fits comfortably into a pocket on the Polar Team Pro compression shirt. With this transmitter, the integrated heart rate technology not only tracks heart rate, but also monitors speed, acceleration, deceleration and running cadence.
Utilizing Polar Team Pro, strength and conditioning coaches and trainers can track up to 60 athletes on a single iPad. Once the training session is over, workout results are easily transferred to the Cloud, where they can then be shared and analyzed with coaches and players. The system can store performance data and compile that data into longitudinal reports, which keep trainers and conditioning coaches at the forefront of trends and understanding how their teams are responding to specific workouts.
“The more data you collect, the more powerful the system is,” said David DiFabio, Polar’s National Accounts Manager for Team Sports.
The system’s power also lies in the long-term, big-picture analysis, which has become vital as athletes – especially those at the professional level – continue to rely on technology to provide justification as to how they can best push their bodies to their true potential during training sessions.
Athletes are so locked in to how they feel on a daily basis, relying on Polar’s tracking technology provides them with instant analysis as to how their bodies are reacting to every phase of their training and performance. Additionally, because recovery has become such a critical aspect of injury prevention, the Polar Team Pro system has become an instrumental tool in allowing athletes to understand not only what they’re doing to recover, but why that recovery method was the best course of action.
The Cloud system allows for continual data storage, timing gaps can be avoided, which keeps trainers and conditioning coaches from having to make assumptions on any missing data. The constant flow of information creates a more effective overall training system and produces the kind of accurate results that teams have come to rely on.
“Part of it is that coaches are looking for whatever edge they can get – they’re ultimately trying to win games and have healthier, happier athletes, because those athletes perform better,” DiFabio said. “What we’re trying to do is keep the best players healthy all season long so they maximize their time on the field. When it comes to the athlete’s standpoint, the thing that I’ve noticed is that they’re a lot more in-tune with technology and they want to know what’s going on with their bodies. The main thing I hear from coaches after purchasing the system is that they begin to wonder, ‘why didn’t we start doing this a lot sooner?’”
At the end of the day, remaining at the cutting edge — both on the field, court or ice and away from it – is ultimately what matters for athletes and franchises striving for the next level of success.
“The Polar Team Pro system is second to none in the industry, said Mike Bewley, Clemson University’s director of basketball strength and conditioning. “Durable, portable, real-time reporting, simple diagnostic insights and easy-to-use software are just some of the benefits that set the Polar Team Pro system apart from other systems. I’ve used virtually every heart rate/telemetry available over the last 14 basketball seasons and Polar’s Team Pro is light years ahead of them all.”
For more information on the Polar Team Pro system, please visit: https://www.polar.com/us-en/b2b_products/team_sports/team_pro