Sports science has become one of the hottest topics and trends in the world of strength & conditioning. It seems like everyone is trying to find the holy grail of athlete monitoring or how to utilize sports science to find the key to athletic success. Millions of dollars have been poured into technology designed to enhance our understanding of athletes so that coaches can make better decisions about training and practice. Unfortunately, it does look like those dollars have had much of a return on investment for most programs yet.
This could be due to many factors:
- Coaches not knowing how to take advantage of the technology
- Coaches not making decisions based on the technology
- The technology not giving coaches the most important information necessary
- Information overload
- Coaches not knowing what to do with all of the information
It could also be that technology can’t tell us everything that is going on. It can’t account for the human factor in sport, so coaches still need to make instinctive decisions and athletes still need to make plays.
Director of Sports Science & Operations for the University of Michigan Football Program, Fergus Connolly Ph.D., has a unique perspective on the sports science trend. While Connolly is fully educated on the technology, he also has a deep understanding of the human element present in sports. In his new book, Game Changer – The Art of Sports Science, he goes into great depth on the ways teams win games.
At first, this seems like just another book on winning, but it’s not. Instead, it’s an in-depth study of sports at both the macro and micro level that makes you think about sports from a unique perspective.
In this episode of The Impact Show, Jim & Fergus discuss the impact that sports science is having on sports and how we can use it to truly make a difference.
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