Data Drives Decisions but doesn't Dictate: Assessment Modalities and Decision Making

    January 25, 2023

    Written by Spencer Herrick

    At the collegiate level, my fellow strength and conditioning coaches and I have a bird's eye view of our athletes work ethics and team dynamics. We see the athletes weekly if not daily, we are having one-on-one coaches meetings, we are on the sidelines, and at the meets, but we're not the focus point for most of the coaches or athletes, and we shouldn't be, games come first! 

    Our bird's-eye view allows head coaches to have honest, 360-degree feedback about what we're seeing and how it benefits or harms athletes health that we are trying so hard to maintain. It's important to provide that feedback, and we, the support staff of the athlete, need to be bold with the head coach about what we think might be a blind spot and what areas we need to see improvement in.

    If you provide this feedback, you should be in a reflective mood as you evaluate your role within the program. At the start of the off-season and in-season, maybe write an “intervention list," a daily checklist of goals, and hang it on your desk as a reminder of what you need to do to have the best S&C program possible. Here is my daily checklist:

    I'm in my first year with Waldorf University and I work with all 22 teams in one way or another. The longer I work in this position, the more grateful I become, and the more I take the time to reflect on my previous programs and how I did things. My biggest consideration from a high-level perspective has been knowing how to integrate technology into a S&C program to take it to the next level. Technology was an area in which I already had solid experience, and I knew it would have a great impact in providing my team with the most comprehensive S&C program possible. 

    As with anything new, adding a technology system to an already busy workload takes time and effort. Also, being open-minded with your coaching staff about what the data shows, how you evaluated the data, and what practical steps you need to take to improve based on data insights. We need to communicate. Especially when that data affects starters that get a lot of playing time. 

    The aim of this article is to show you that with the right systems in place, technology doesn’t have to add hours to your already busy day. In fact, the opposite is true. You will save time if you use technology correctly, and you will get a deeper, more wide-reaching picture of many things that contribute significantly to your athletes’ health and performance. And this, at the end of the day, is how our jobs are assessed, if athletes actually get better under our care. 

    To clarify, I know from discussions that this question is being asked a lot:

Do we really need technology (force plates, VBT, GPS, heart rate monitors, etc.) to run an S&C program and get good results in the weight room and on the field/court/?

    To answer candidly, not at all, there is little data that proves that having those things will automatically assist you in creating a well-rounded, better S&C program. But, it won't hurt your programs. I believe the mindset needs to be proactive in nature, constantly changing. Ask these questions instead.

    What else can I do that will raise the level of intent in my S&C program? How can I take it from good to great? What could move the performance needle if I added it into my program?

Considerations

    Following this, I have more questions for you and your staff to contemplate:

• Are the teams high-performing? How do you define and quantify high-performing?

• How do you quantify your job performance? 
• (Learn from the wins and the losses from a physical preparation standpoint and remember that a strength coach has never made a winning play in any game. We are support staff, not athletes.)

• What data do you have that you can show an athlete so they can see their progress, both in the weight room and on the field/court?

• What training program feedback are you getting? 
• In this power block of training, how do you know if the athlete got more explosive? 
• Does a 1RM power clean improvement equal an improvement in their force production? 

• Do you have a yearlong readiness and fatigue monitoring system in place?

    You will get better results with the use of technology within your S&C program. Answering these questions without data, without evidence of improvements, and without objective quantifiable results is near impossible. You can turn a good program into a great one with tech because you are now getting player-specific feedback, internal and external load, that can help your decision-making as an S&C coach. 

Assessments

    When we look at assessment data, it is with the understanding that beyond the general physical properties we are testing, there are other factors always in play, including individual tissue properties, muscle insertions, biomechanical efficiency, and numerous other qualities that are often athlete-specific rather than team specific

Typical Assessment tools (Article on Readiness Tools) that can be vital for athletes in team settings include:

• Isometric Mid-Thigh Pull (crane scale or force plates)- tests lower body max strength

• Vertical Jump (static or countermovement)- tests lower body explosive strength

• Reactive Strength Index (4 jump approach)- tests lower body reactive strength

• Heart Rate Monitoring (polar or watch)- heart rate activity during exercise bouts

• Velocity Based Training (Eliteform LLC app, gymaware)- real time biofeedback 

    A great metaphor to approach strength training assessments I heard from a coworker is the metaphor of filling buckets, and the results from an athlete’s assessment shows us where to add water and what bucket we need to fill: 

    This example athlete would show excellent maximal strength in the IMTP, with average explosive strength and poor reactive ability in the jumps. Their training program would be altered to generally focus on explosive work and reactive plyometrics with a maintenance level of heavy lifting, all intended to fill their explosive strength and reactive ability buckets while keeping their maximal strength bucket as full as possible. 

    I like to share with the coaching staff via text when multiple players gets a PR jump. I’ll let my head coach know when the team average is high above the average or low below the average. I do this to create a conversation around the team’s upcoming training and how best we can program to ensure the team stays healthy and high-performing.

    Reporting good news to the coaching staff from the weight room is always fun; if the team’s energy is good and their jumps and monitor tests are above average, it’s productive to reinforce the staff’s desire to have an intense practice. What makes a coaching staff impressive is their ability to use their eye and know when to pull back on intensity or duration of practice (or sometimes both). 

    Even when the jump heights or velocities have been well below average, it’s been interesting to report this to the staff and see that the plan for that day or the next day was for a lighter court session or no practice anyway, which is a great connection between their instinct and the data. This isn’t always the case, of course, but this is where we have to be brave to report what we see and trust that the information is received and some training modifications, even if they are small, are made.

Assessment Frequency

      Preferably, testing should happen each first week in the gym and then retest once every 4-6 weeks (IMTP, 3-5 rep maxes, maybe Heart Rate). 4-6 week blocks allow us to track athlete progress to advance programming without using so much training time that might significantly interfere with their practice, throwing, or lifting programs. 

    Testing is different than monitoring in that testing is performed periodically (eg. every 4-6 weeks), whereas monitoring is done on an ongoing basis or with very short intervals (eg. during every lift). Both have their benefits and their drawbacks. Testing tends to take significantly longer but the depth of information can be much greater. Monitoring provides less information but because it is done more frequently, you can identify trends and potentially make programming decisions on a much shorter basis, and even in real time. Often times with monitoring athletes you can give them a % drop-off or a velocity drop-off depending on your test. 

    For a vertical jump, I give athletes a 10% drop-off, if they are below 10% of the previous lifts jump, I alter their programming to benefit their recovery in session greater. 

    Depending on the velocity range, you can give them up to a .5 m/s drop-off, if they are above that drop-off %, lower their weight, or alter their program in real time 

(Eliteform LLC app shown below)

    Inevitably, I will end up with a protocol that consists of both testing and monitoring – testing to get a deep understanding of the athlete, and monitoring to give us useful information that can be used to make adjustments in a tighter time frame.

    Whether you currently use technology in your program or not, one thing is for sure—sports technology isn’t going anywhere! To provide the athletes with the most holistic strength and conditioning program possible, we must integrate performance tech. The information these products provide is game-changing compared to not having it.

Note    

    This assessment process and the specific metrics I look at are continually being evaluated and compared to other possibilities as data is collected and I learn to apply it better. As the assessment evolves, I will update this blog with significant changes or additional tests that may be added down the road.