The Villanova Wildcats have breezed through their first three games of the NCAA Tournament this year. But now, in the Elite 8, they will have their biggest challenge yet when they face the Tournament’s #1 overall seed in the Kansas Jayhawks.
While the Wildcats are clearly full of talented players this March Madness, the coaching and training staff has also upped their game with the help of some cutting-edge technology.
Preparing for the Jayhawks #Elite8 #LetsMarchNova #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/1fgZh62tOT
— Villanova MBB (@NovaMBB) March 25, 2016
Products from Polar, a sports technology company that makes heart rate monitors, fitness trackers, and GPS sports watches, have been utilized by the staff to gain valuable metrics and insights about their players.
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With the Polar Team Pro app, coaches have been able to receive instant analysis with detailed player stats and data over a training session which can even let them compare players. This information can be a valuable tool for coaches and trainers to help them be smarter at their jobs with tasks like optimizing player training and injury recovery patterns.
In addition to the app, the Polar Team Pro web service provides a much deeper dive into the data gathered about the players and even generates detailed reports for staff members to review.
For the Wildcats, Polar has allowed team members to connect their Polar wearables (V800, M400, A300 and Loop) to the Polar Team Pro web service, allowing their coaches and trainers to gather data from daily activities.
The Wildcats’ Strength and Conditioning coach, John Shackleton, enlisted the use of Polar Team Pro system in August 2015 in hopes of getting smarter with tracking team practices, active recovery sessions and conditioning sessions, as well as to set the coaching staff up to be able to review the entire season once it has concluded.
On a daily basis, John provides Villanova’s head coach, Jay Wright, with data from the system, and together they can structure their practices and workouts to cater to the team style of play. In the words of John, “with the Polar Team pro we are able to plan smart and train smart.”
The following is a Q&A with John discussing his experience using Polar tech to help train Villanova basketball players:
1. Please explain how Villanova uses Polar products and what exactly the products are.
Villanova Men’s Basketball uses Polar technology to monitor all practices and conditioning sessions. We currently utilize the Polar Team Pro system which consists of heart rate monitoring, an accelerometer (motion tracking), and GPS.
2. What problem in college athletics is Polar solving for college basketball teams?
Polar technology provides answers to questions regarding the intensity at which games, practices, and conditioning sessions are performed. Intensity is a key training variable that must be managed appropriately throughout the year in order to maximize performance while avoiding overtraining which can lead to injuries.
Polar technology is providing college basketball teams with objective data on the internal (physiological) and external (biomechanical) loads being placed on athletes. This insight affords the coaching staff with information that can lead to smarter practice planning and training.
3. How does Polar tech help you create specific practices with Jay Wright? What is that process like to see the data and then understand the nuances of this Nova team and react accordingly?
As our team enters the basketball season highly conditioned from the rigors of off season training we want to make sure practices are imposing the right amount of stimulus for continued improvement in the team’s overall conditioning. With the Polar Team Pro data we collected from preseason practices and exhibition games we were able to set parameters for key data points (heart rate and distance) that ensure we are practicing at intensity levels similar to what we see in a game.
With the ability to monitor key data points live with the Polar Team Pro we were able make adjustments during practice this year. For example, as the season progressed we began to learn about our team’s ability to recover following intense efforts. What we observed made us realize the need for sections of practice where the team would play for extended periods of time without much stoppage. Discovering the nuances of our team’s ability to recover was pivotal in pushing our teams conditioning ceiling to a new level.
4. Any specific stories with using Polar tech this year that really stand out in your mind?
We have a guy that is a redshirt transfer. He is one hell of an athlete. His development has far exceeded our expectations. As his conditioning and strength has improved it has been interesting to see how these changes are reflected in the data. He is now one of our most explosive players. He has the highest vertical jump on the team. One of the data points Polar Team Pro tracks live is “Sprints”, which is any movement that is over 2.8m/s. He dominates the sprints data every practice. It has been fun to see his physical development in the weight room carry over to the basketball court. Polar Team Pro has helped visualize these performance improvements that take place on the court.
5. How have players reacted to using the Polar devices? What does it add to their day?
Players have accepted wearing Polar monitors as part of their uniforms. We share data with players on a daily basis and they have become quite competitive with their numbers for the selected data points we communicate with them.
We hang the strap/monitor in their lockers everyday before practice. It literally takes a second to put on. After practice we collect the straps and download the data from the monitor to the cloud. Guys will stop by office or send me text messages to find out their specific numbers for the day.
6. What ultimately convinced you to use this type of technology to help players train?
The Polar Team Pro’s ability to provide objective data that can be used to quantify intensity (how hard we are training) is what ultimately convinced us to use this type of technology.