STATS, a sports data and analytics company, announced a new GPS-based athlete training tool with textile heart rate sensors on Monday that will offer users new insights into performance.
Stats GPS is a vest embedded with textile sensors that will measure an athlete’s workout in real time based on data from GPS, heart rate and inertial measurement units. Using a 50-Hz sampling frequency (a more accurate version of some of Stats’ previous GPS-based products), the device will measure up to 300 customizable metrics and be able to monitor up to 100 players simultaneously during practice.
“Teams and conditioning coaches need the latest technology to ensure players stay at peak health and fitness during long seasons,” said Ryan Paterson, the chief global officer at STATS. Now, “teams can instantly get performance information, allowing them to make in-the-moment decisions.”
During practice, coaches will receive real-time information about acceleration, deceleration, energy expenditure, count of zone entries, and time, distance and power thresholds.
After practice, coaches can access detailed session reports that are ready by the time players walk off the field via the STATS Dynamix online portal. Reports are fully-customizable and can include in-depth player summaries as well as information on imbalance and cardiovascular metrics, and explosive and braking symmetry. The system also allows sports scientists to apply results to historical data.
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“Objectively monitoring players in training and in-match is essential for us in order to optimally prepare them and mitigate injury risk,” said Pete Atkinson, head of performance at the Italian Rugby Federation. “We are working closely with STATS to target individual players’ needs utilising the latest technology.”
SportTechie Takeaway
As STATS develops more sophisticated athlete monitoring technologies, it will push these new products onto the teams it has already partnered with and attempt to prove how analytics can greatly enhance a team’s performance. Coupling an ever-increasing array of performance metrics with a digestible platform that helps coaches better analyze their players has become imperative now that a number of wearable companies are competing in the elite tracking space.