High level athletes are on a constant strive for perfection and will do anything it takes to gain a competitive edge over other athletes by trying cutting edge technologies or even unorthodox ideas and techniques to improve their performance. The same goes for athletes and employees at St. Vincent’s Sports Performance in Indianapolis.
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Currently, St. Vincent’s Sports Performance is training with 10 college football players over the next few months to prepare them for the NFL Combine. As expected with their training routine, they continue to get bigger and stronger, but St. Vincent’s is exploring different ways to increase their training by collecting data on the sweat of the athletes during each workout in order to assist performance and recovery of the athlete.
Led by St.Vincent’s Sports Performance head Sport’s Dietitian, Lindsay Langford, St. Vincent’s is conducting a sweat test for their elite athletes to identify adequate hydration amounts for each athlete. This would help the athlete pinpoint a reason why they may have early onset fatigue, increased over-exertion rate, and overall performance decreases.
Rain or shine. Come here to get stronger, faster, healthier, better. #training pic.twitter.com/Z1FFVEe9ge
— St. V Sports Perform (@DefiningSports) January 8, 2016
Prior to the workout they will stick a sweat patch on each athlete and weigh them. The process takes just a few extra minutes out of an athlete’s day. The patch is removed after the workout and and the data collected is processed in about a week. Magnitude and content of sweat for each athlete is produced by the patch and the results of these tests are being shared with the athletes and their trainers.
The results that the tests have shown have helped the athletes feel much better while training. “Most of our athletes are getting about 1/10th of the electrolytes usually with commercial drinks,” says Langford. Essentially, normal Gatorade, Powerade, and other sports performance drinks do not do the job any more for their athletes. The athletes that St.Vincent’s are training burn much more electrolytes than they take in, dramatically impacting their performance, and the way they feel during workouts.
Instead, Langford recommends supplementing the commercial drinks with options that carry more electrolytes, or simply adding more electrolytes to the commercial drinks. “The Right Stuff electrolyte replacement, Gatorade Endurance, and Powerbar Perform are all drinks that I like to recommend to my athletes,” says Langford. Those drinks are all higher in electrolytes than the commercial drinks which will help performance.
The athletes that Langford has observed have shown an increase in performance during workouts, and do not feel as fatigued during the workouts due to the extra boost of electrolytes. This insight would not have been possible without the proper utilization of their athlete measuring sports science.