Men's soccer uses sports science and GPS tracking system to increase performance
11/11/2019 4:27:00 PM | Men's Soccer, Features
MILLERSVILLE, Pa. - As sports science and analytics become more commonplace in both collegiate and professional sports, teams continue to look to gain slight advantages however possible. In the spring of 2018 Millersville men's soccer adopted the VX Sport athlete monitoring system, which has allowed the Marauders to take steps toward maximizing the team's performance on the training ground and in matches.
"We didn't have a lot of the sport science side of things," said men's soccer head coach Steve Widdowson. "Every year you're looking at how to do better and take things in a different direction. The VX system allows us to get more out of our student athletes, both in the classroom and on the field."
When a player wakes up in the morning they submit a Wellness Profile, detailing their levels of fatigue, soreness, and quality of sleep. Each athlete gives a rating on a scale of 1-5 for each category and a final total score is generated.
"I pay attention to my body a lot more," said senior Jacob Gosselin. "Coach will see the score and can say 'hey, your numbers are low, what happened?' and adjust training or send you to the trainer if you need it."
"The Wellness Profiles open up communication and provides us as coaches with information as the players learn to analyze themselves," said Widdowson. "We don't see our players as much as we want to—it'd be great to have soccer all the time, but they have to go to class, eat, and have downtime. You need to educate every student athlete about it, show them the data and how it's used, and tell them why it's important."
During games and training sessions, all players wear a GPS monitoring unit on their chest that tracks their position on the field in addition to collecting critical data such as maximum speeds and frequency of high intensity sprints.
"It's definitely valuable for training," said senior Ethan Woods. "You used to be able to hide or not try as much, but now with the VX it makes our practices more intense. Everyone's flying around because the next day coach will text you and say 'why are your numbers low?' It keeps everyone in check and makes practices better."
"High-intensity work is the most important thing to me because that's what you see in the game," said Widdowson. "It can translate to some mistakes in the games if those sprints are lacking. When we see things standing out we will approach players and tell them to look at the numbers, where they're at, and what needs to change. That's a good thing."
"I know for me when we first got it, a bunch of us focused on the high intensity work," said Gosselin. "Tracking how many high intensity sprints we had and how it affected the way we played. Then we can see if we had a good training session or a good game and try to have those numbers match up."
Another benefit of the VX system is injury recovery. The data can show where a player was prior to an injury and make sure they ramp up back to those levels properly.
"Guys coming back from injury used to be guesswork between myself, the student-athlete and the athletic trainer whereas now we have specific parameters we can look at," said Widdowson. "I know what your top speed is and you have to hit that before you return to play."
"It shows you where you need to go and if you are underworked or overworked," said Woods. "It's all about getting used to game level again."
"It's a lot better than before when it was 'do you feel good?' and then guys go back out and get re-injured," said Gosselin. "It makes sure you get the proper amount of work in before you go back out in a game."
Since instituting the VX system Millersville men's soccer has won the 2018 PSAC Championship, finished as the 2019 PSAC East champion, and will host the semifinals and championship game in this week's 2019 PSAC Tournament.
"The amount of data that's in there is incredible and I just try to pull out the most important stuff," said Widdowson. "What our training load is, who needs some extra work, or who needs to rest a little bit. It provides validation to information that we give players. They can't say we're moaning or making things up. You can't argue with numbers."
"We didn't have a lot of the sport science side of things," said men's soccer head coach Steve Widdowson. "Every year you're looking at how to do better and take things in a different direction. The VX system allows us to get more out of our student athletes, both in the classroom and on the field."
When a player wakes up in the morning they submit a Wellness Profile, detailing their levels of fatigue, soreness, and quality of sleep. Each athlete gives a rating on a scale of 1-5 for each category and a final total score is generated.
"I pay attention to my body a lot more," said senior Jacob Gosselin. "Coach will see the score and can say 'hey, your numbers are low, what happened?' and adjust training or send you to the trainer if you need it."
"The Wellness Profiles open up communication and provides us as coaches with information as the players learn to analyze themselves," said Widdowson. "We don't see our players as much as we want to—it'd be great to have soccer all the time, but they have to go to class, eat, and have downtime. You need to educate every student athlete about it, show them the data and how it's used, and tell them why it's important."
During games and training sessions, all players wear a GPS monitoring unit on their chest that tracks their position on the field in addition to collecting critical data such as maximum speeds and frequency of high intensity sprints.
"It's definitely valuable for training," said senior Ethan Woods. "You used to be able to hide or not try as much, but now with the VX it makes our practices more intense. Everyone's flying around because the next day coach will text you and say 'why are your numbers low?' It keeps everyone in check and makes practices better."
"High-intensity work is the most important thing to me because that's what you see in the game," said Widdowson. "It can translate to some mistakes in the games if those sprints are lacking. When we see things standing out we will approach players and tell them to look at the numbers, where they're at, and what needs to change. That's a good thing."
"I know for me when we first got it, a bunch of us focused on the high intensity work," said Gosselin. "Tracking how many high intensity sprints we had and how it affected the way we played. Then we can see if we had a good training session or a good game and try to have those numbers match up."
Another benefit of the VX system is injury recovery. The data can show where a player was prior to an injury and make sure they ramp up back to those levels properly.
"Guys coming back from injury used to be guesswork between myself, the student-athlete and the athletic trainer whereas now we have specific parameters we can look at," said Widdowson. "I know what your top speed is and you have to hit that before you return to play."
"It shows you where you need to go and if you are underworked or overworked," said Woods. "It's all about getting used to game level again."
"It's a lot better than before when it was 'do you feel good?' and then guys go back out and get re-injured," said Gosselin. "It makes sure you get the proper amount of work in before you go back out in a game."
Since instituting the VX system Millersville men's soccer has won the 2018 PSAC Championship, finished as the 2019 PSAC East champion, and will host the semifinals and championship game in this week's 2019 PSAC Tournament.
"The amount of data that's in there is incredible and I just try to pull out the most important stuff," said Widdowson. "What our training load is, who needs some extra work, or who needs to rest a little bit. It provides validation to information that we give players. They can't say we're moaning or making things up. You can't argue with numbers."
Players Mentioned
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