INTERPRETING YOUR STRIVE DATA
Athletes, coaches, and trainers are always looking to train smarter and more efficient. Now that you have decided to use the STRIVE Performance System to help quantify performance, what’s next? It’s time to dive into your data insights! We know vast quantities of data can seem overwhelming, so let’s break it down to the basics.
Within the STRIVE App and dashboard, you will noticed a focus on these four metrics during your session: muscle load, external load, muscle ratio/distribution, and muscle symmetry. Here are the best ways to easily interpret your data after completing a training session or movement evaluation. Follow along below to see how you can quickly identify which insights the visuals represent within your STRIVE dashboard.
Muscle load is the summation of internal muscular response from the lower extremities following the stimulus of an external load. The stimulus can vary in duration, frequency, and intensity-dependent on a game or training session. STRIVE provides valid and reliable data of internal Load through wearable technology- enabled with EMG sensors, the Internal load measurement is Muscle Load (uV). By tracking internal load, practitioners can better understand training response and adaptation of players during training and games. Muscle Load gives deeper insights into fatigue, recovery, adaptation, maladaptation, injury risk, and total muscle activity creating a true understanding of internal load.
External load is the sum of the work completed by an individual during a training session, drill, or period of time. + IMA (Inertial Movement Analysis): IMA is a set of metrics that measures athlete micro movements and direction collected from both a tri-axial accelerometer and a tri-axial gyroscope micro technology regardless of unit orientation. An algorithm graphically evaluates and visualizes the magnitude of every micro movement an athlete makes and these movements can be quantified into low, medium and high intensity zones that are used to construct profiles of athletes movements for impacts, high intensity movement, acceleration or decelerations.
Optimal ratios of mechanical efficiency in the major muscles of the lower extremities have been identified for hamstring, quadriceps and gluteus. Percentage of Glute vs HS vs Quad [Desired muscle group mV / (glute mV + HS mV + Quad mV)] Hamstring injuries are the most common muscle injury in sports and have an extremely high rate of re-injury, the factors that can lead to hamstring injury include a lack of flexibility, weakness, and poor muscle contraction. STRIVE can be utilized for monitoring muscle ratio to identify the balance, interaction, sequencing of the glutes, hamstrings and quads that play a key roles in the articulation of the knee to better understand injuries and training performance.
Percentage of variation in muscle load of internal muscular response from the lower extremities Right vs Left legs [Desired leg mV / (right leg aggregate mV + left leg aggregate mV)] Identifying the contralateral differences in lower limb muscle activity and deficits within the anterior and posterior muscle groups, can be utilized for monitoring training, injury inquiries, and aid in the return to play/rehabilitation process to better understand the detailed physiological response to training modes. For an athlete with an asymmetrical variation to a magnitude that is outside what is normally expected or tolerable there is a possibility of maladaptation or injury.
Now that you have the STRIVE basics down – time to get out there and start training! If you have additional questions on getting started with STRIVE or what your data insights mean, reach out to our Support Team and they will be able to assist you further.
