Join Catapult’s Jozef Baker as he talks through how users can configure and see High Speed Distance live on iPad.

Running a Live Activity Guide
Catapult Vector Application

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Okay, so we’ve got a question here from one

of our Vector Core users asking how can I

see High Speed Distance Live on my iPad?

Well, a couple of things that we need to check first.

So the first thing is to check

that you’re using the correct application.

This should be the Catapult Vector app.

I will provide a link to that

beneath this video for your reference.

But it is the app in the App Store that

has the word ‘Vector’ in the app icon itself.

The next thing you’re going to do is, in your

cloud software, I want you to navigate up to the

Settings menu and then into the Bands menu.

And then from the drop down select Velocity.

High speed Distance will be taken from

distance accumulated in Bands 5 and 6.

So in this example here, this would be any

distance accumulated above 5.5 meters/second once you’ve checked that

and you’re happy and you’ve applied any thresholds that

you’ve changed to the rest of your athletes.

If you actually navigate into the application itself

beforehand, be sure to kind of sync any changes down.

Start a New Session and create a

period as you would do normally.

Add any athletes into that period.

Then what you’re going to do to see High Speed Distance

is you’re just going to scroll across the top here.

So where it says Total Distance, just place one finger

on the iPad screen itself and just drag right to

left and you should see High Speed Distance appear.

What you can also do as well, if you

click on the Target View in the top right,

you can set a target for High Speed Distance.

Either drag or toggle the slider or

enter it on the right hand side.

Once you’ve set a target, just toggle the Target Mode

on to see it as a percentage of your target.

Hopefully that answers your question.

Please do continue to check in and

engage with us on the Unleash platform.

We’ll see you on the next one.

Join Catapult’s Jozef Baker as he talks through how users can import Focus tags into OpenField and report on them as an annotation layer.

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Okay, so another question here from one of our

Pro Video and Vector Core Plus users asking; How

do I import Focus Tags into OpenField?

Okay, so to answer this one we’ll dive

into both Focus and OpenField and hopefully I

can give you the answer you need.

Okay, so as you can see here, we’ve

got my Focus package which I’ve created.

I’ve gone through and created tags for each instance.

And importantly I’ve actually tagged the start of the

first half and the start of the second half.

And I’ve been careful to name that

tag Start with a capital ‘S’.

The next thing I’m going to do rather than going to

export session JSON is I’m going to go up to the

top here and I’m going to select export session XML.

So just press ok on that.

Choose a suitable save location then.

Now what we’re going to do is we’re

going to navigate across into the OpenField Console.

If you right click on the top of the OpenField

activity, navigate down to import codes, Hudl Sportscode annotations

and you’re going to select classic at the top, press

select file and go and navigate and find the xml

that we’ve just saved from Focus.

Now you should be presented with all of the

tags that you’ve created in your Focus package.

What you’re going to do is just highlight all of those.

Do not select the or check the event box

and remember to select the start tag as well.

If you navigate up to the top,

click align, start with periods and just

select the two OpenField periods there.

When you’re happy you can press import.

Once you’ve done that, you should see that we’ve

got start tags lining up with the first half.

And then if we just drag move to the right here and

the second of those start tags will be in line with the

second half and all of our tags will be in the console.

So all you’ll need to do there is just complete a.

I normally recommend doing a Full Bake and then

following that make sure you do a Full Sync.

So now if we go into the OpenField

Cloud, you’ll see we’ve got all of those

tags that we created in Focus that we’ve

subsequently loaded into the OpenField Console appearing in

the timeline here I have created some widgets.

So if I go into one of those, the widget

here under source, you need to make sure that you

select ‘Annotations Database’ as opposed to ‘Periods Database’.

And then you’ve got the option to choose

from Annotation Category in the row labels.

So as you can see here, we’ve got total

distance for each of the tag categories and I’ve

displayed that as a chart on the right side.

If you want to show data for individual tags

again, you’ll need to change the source to Annotations

Database, but in the row labels you’re going to

select Annotation Name as opposed to Category.

One thing I recommend doing if you’re going to

select individual tags is toggling how you sort those.

So next to the row label, I would recommend

choosing to sort by Annotation Time and as such

you’ll see that they’ll go in chronological order.

So here I can quickly see that this Team

B Positional Attacks With Chances had 1230 meters on

the right hand side here I’ve just displayed the

same information in a chart and this is probably

an easier way to pick out those peaks.

Okay, I hope that answers your question.

Do continue to check in with the Unleash platform.

If you have more questions, feel free to

go through the Success & Support portal.

Join Catapult’s Jozef Baker as he talks through how users can create high speed distance metrics above a percentage of an individual’s maximum velocity.

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Okay, we’ve got a question here from one of our Vector

Core Plus users asking how do I create a high speed

yardage metric above 80% of an individual player’s max?

In order to answer the question, what I’m going

to do is we’re going to jump into the

OpenField Cloud Software and walk you through the process.

The first thing you’re going to want to

do is go up to the Settings menu.

Within settings, go into the Athletes tab.

And if you aren’t already in this Grid View,

just toggle between Grid View and List View. Okay.

The reason being here is you can edit

multiple players at once in the Grid View.

So what I’m going to do here is

just enter in the Max Velocity on the

right hand side in your units of measurement.

The next thing I’m going to do is just head over

to the Bands section and then I’ve either got the option

to go into Velocity Bands or Velocity (Set 2).

You should have the option of both.

If not, do let us know.

We can add that into your account.

What you’re then going to do is change

the units of measurement and then you’re going

to toggle the Use Percentage button on.

Once you’ve done that, these bands at the top

here, you can, you can change, you can edit.

And as we can see here, I’ve already got my

Band 5 low threshold set to 80% because we’re using

the Use Percentage mode of the player’s maximum.

And that maximum will be taken from the

maximum you set in the Athlete Profile.

Okay, so if we head over to Parameters now

and just scroll to the bottom because I’ve used

Velocity (Set 2), I’m going to show you how

that looks in Velocity (Set 2).

Now if you are looking at Minimum Effort Distance or

Total Efforts, you’ll be able to see here that the

Velocity Band will have a ‘+’ after it.

So either Velocity Band 5+ and that will

count kind of all efforts above that band.

So in the example we’ve been working on here, we’ve

used Band 5, but we also had Band 6.

That Band 5+ would be inclusive of the

Band 6. If you’re using something like Distance,

So if we scroll down there we go

Velocity Band 5 Total Distance (Set 2).

We would also probably want to include any distance that

we accumulate in Velocity Band 6 (Set 2) as well.

So to do that, we can go into List

Custom Parameters and I can Add Custom Parameter.

So what I’m going to do is just call

that custom parameter >80% of Individual Maximum Speed

in the calculation if you just start typing.

Even if you type the first letter of each of

the words, you should get some predicted metrics and just

select the appropriate so Velocity Band 5 Total Distance (Set

2) plus Velocity Band 6 Total Distance (Set 2).

Once I’ve selected both of those, I can Add

Parameter and that will be available for you to

make use of in an OpenField widget.

I hope that answers your question.

Please check in with the Unleash

platform for more content like this.

Join Catapult’s Ross Goodall as he talks through how teams approach weekly periodisation in association football, Soccer.

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So the question I’ll be answering today is; “How

much shall I load my players and when?”

The periodized week should be planned around how coaches

are wanting to structure their training weeks, when players

are in and when they’re off recovering.

It’s the role of a sports scientist to

balance exposing players to enough training load to

increase their fitness while at the same time

being careful not to overload players.

The values I’m about to talk through are

shown as an approximate percentage of match loads.

The first model is the Traditional Model.

This is a model in a typical one game

week schedule and gives players two days off.

This model prioritizes freshness in the

lead up to the match day.

However, this may not provide enough recovery time.

Research suggests players should have at least

48 hours post-match date for recovery.

Athletes will also only have

one conditioning day per week.

Model number two is the European Model.

This is a model which has been

adopted by Rafa Benitez in the past.

Players are back in on match day plus one (MD+1) for

active recovery and squad players will receive top up sessions.

Match day plus two (MD+2) will then be a rest day.

This model generally prioritizes recovery.

There are long lead times into games

with one day dedicated to conditioning.

Model number three is the Tactical Model.

The Tactical Model has been used by Jose

Mourinho and his staff in a very immersive

approach to where there are no days off.

This affords the coaches two days of conditioning,

one dedicated to small spaces with lots of

Accels and Decels and one with larger

spaces with more high speed running.

Lastly, we have the Adapted Tactical Model which

has been used by Pochettino in the past.

This is similar to the Tactical approach,

but swaps the extensive and intensive days

around and instead incorporates a friendly game.

This is used to simulate two day game weeks, but

once again there’s little to no time off with family.

Thanks for listening, I hope you found that useful.

Continue to check in with the Unleash

platform for more content like this.

Join Catapult’s Connor Howley as he talks through how long it takes soccer players to recover after matches.

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Hi, my name is Connor Howley and I’m a

product support technician here at Catapult who is going

to take you through a query surrounding football recovery.

So we’ve got a question here from one

of our users, which is; How long does

it take players to recover post match?

So Silva et al in 2018 conducted a systematic

review looking at the effect size of performance

markers at different intervals, which were during an

dematches, and they compared these against baseline measures.

They found a large effect size looking

at creatine kinase and delayed onset muscle

soreness 24 hours post-match.

They also found moderate effect sizes when looking

at hamstring strength and counter movement jump height

48 hours post-match, there was still a moderate

effect on hamstring strength, creatine kinase and delayed

onset muscle soreness, and also small effect sizes

were seen in quadricep strength, linear sprint performance

and countermovement jump performance.

72 hours postmatch, there was still a

moderate effect size in hamstring strength and

countermovement jump performance, while the remaining

performance markers showed as small or trivial.

As Silva et al. states

while some parameters are fully recovered,

a 72 hours period is still not

long enough for complete homeostasis.

Generally in sports like association football, it is unlikely

that players will ever receive this long to recover

before preparation for the next game starts.

As such, coaches must adjust structure and content

of sessions in a 72 hours window to

respect recovery while ramping towards conditioning sessions.

Thanks for listening, I hope you found that

useful and please continue to check in with

the Unleash platform for more content like this.

I’ll see you next time.

Join Catapult’s Alex Lowthorpe as he talks through why top up sessions are required for soccer player and when they can be delivered.

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So, we have a question here from one of our users.

Do I need to give extra work to the players

who didn’t play the match and if so, when?

Before we dive into the answers, let’s

look at some of the research.

Anderson et al.

Looked at squad status and the implications

for physical load throughout the season.

He defined starters as those who started greater than

60% of games, fringe players as those who started

30% to 60% of games, and non-starters as those

who started less than 30% of the games.

Looking at the differences between starters and

non-starters across training and matches, he found

the effect size was very large across

running high speed running and sprinting intensities.

When looking at running intensity, starters covered

approximately 92 km per season compared to 58 km for non-starters.

For high speed running, starters covered approximately

35 km per season compared to 19 km for non-starters and

for sprinting, starters covered approximately 11 km per season

compared to 3 km for non-starters.

When comparing starters versus fringe players, the same

very large effect size was apparent in sprinting.

Starting players completed approximately 11 km compared

to fringe players who completed approximately 5 km of

sprinting distance per season, indicating that unlike

total seasonal volume of training, I. E.

Total distance and duration, seasonal high

intensity loading patterns are dependent upon

players match starting status.

Therefore, there is a requirement to address this through

training exposure. To answer the first part of the

question, do I need to give extra work to

the players who didn’t play the match?

The answer is yes, but when?

Well, if we look at a typical week,

we have three opportunities before the next team

conditioning session, the first one being match day.

After the game.

It is not uncommon to see substitutes and

players who did not enter onto the pitch

receive high speed and sprinting top ups.

This is often preferred by players and staff as their

schedules match with days off at the same time.

The next option is to split it over

match day and match day plus one (MD+1).

However, this means players have no days off.

Alternatively, another option is for these players to complete

their extra work on match day plus one (MD+1).

However, this doesn’t give the players the best

chance to recover and perform at their best

during training on a match day plus two (MD+2).

Thank you for listening.

I hope you found that useful.

Join Catapult’s Sophie Goves as she talks through what the research suggests for senior and junior female soccer players.

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We’ve got a question here from one

of our users working in Women’s football.

They’ve asked which value should I set

as my speed and velocity thresholds?

Let’s jump into it.

Before you decide which thresholds to use,

you need to understand whether you use

absolute or relative bands in zones.

Absolute bands are used with

more of a performance outlook.

Relative bands are more often than not

used as part of development outlook.

If we look at absolute values, the best place

to start is probably what is used by the

governing body in 2019 FIFA Women’s World cup.

They used the following thresholds to determine walking,

jogging, running, high speed running and sprinting.

The values in bold feature in

the report and the research here.

We’ve also converted these into other units for you.

Research by Strauss and Lopez Fernandez both use more

bands with smaller increments denoting high speed, running at

4.3 to 5.6 and 4.4 to 5 meters/second and

sprinting as above 5.6 and above 5 meters/second respectively.

If you’re working with junior cohort, the

thresholds may need to be adapted.

Research by Harkness, Armstrong, Till, Datson and Emmons

reduced the number of bands to four.

If you’re wanting to use relative velocity bands in

speed zones, this can either be done by looking

at percentages of max velocity and speed, or by

using percentages of MAS and ASR.

MAS stands for maximum aerobic speed and is

strongly correlated with minimum speed at VO2

max ASR stands for anaerobic speed reserve.

This is estimated using maximum sprint speed.

The benefit of this is to understand

which energy systems the athlete is utilizing

during training sessions and matches.

The paper by Abbott et al. will be linked below

the video to detail how these can be calculated.

Thanks for listening. I hope you found that useful.

Please continue to check in with the

Unleash platform for more content like this.

I’ll see you next time.

Join Catapult’s Kyle Stobbs as he talks through how to use Catapult technologies to mitigate the risk of injury.

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Hello everyone, we’ve got a question here.

One of our users asking; how can

I use my devices for injury prevention?

Although we don’t claim to prevent injuries, we

can provide some insight into some ways to

mitigate avoidable injuries such as muscle strains.

So let’s jump right into it.

The big question we get from our users

and how we can do this is by

using the application of loading concepts like this

training stress balance involving the acute chronic workload

ratio and the application of field screening drills.

So in this original concept, Hulin and

colleagues came up with the original training

stress balance concept using cricket fastbowlers.

The concept recommends avoidance of spikes in training

load over an average load between a 7

day period and a 28 day period.

The 7 day period is the acute load.

The 28 day period is the chronic load.

As the ratio of these two variables increase, the

likelihood of injury also increases, which is what we

see in the graph on the right here.

And the acute chronic workload ratio works best on

the variables such as total distance or high speed

distance as a measure of locomotive load, PlayerLoad

as a measure of mechanical load, and heart rate

exertion as a measure of an internal load.

This is a case study showing the soccer

player’s data leading up to a hamstring injury.

Here the user is using PlayerLoad.

Chronic load was displayed on the area line

and acute load is displayed as the bar.

And as you can see there is jumps and

spikes leading up to 1.4, which is out of

the sweet spot shown on the previous slide.

Now for Vector Core Plus and Vector Pro users,

they can utilize the acute chronic widget within OpenField.

Now some considerations if you’re interested in

applying the training stress balance concept, you

need to be mindful of these.

The concerns about the validity of the mathematical

calculation used for the acute period using both

seven day and a 28 day calculations.

If you’re interested in looking more into this, then

I suggest you look at the ‘Un-Coupled’ approach.

You may also be interested in look at the

exponentially weighted model which adapts the original concept by

adding a decaying effect so it places extra emphasis

on the sessions closer to the present day.

Lastly, and most importantly, it doesn’t take into

account individual differences, so it assumes that everyone

reacts the same way to the external stimuli.

So screening drills are the second approach

which I outlined at the beginning.

Using fingerprint drills are a way of testing

our players outside of a lab environment.

To implement these into monitoring practice, you can either

ask a coach to incorporate them into the session

plan or use an existing activity which already takes

place, such as lapse around the pitch.

Ideally, this should be performed at the beginning

of the session to adapt load for individuals

for the remainder of the session if needed.

Once these drills have been performed, you can

tag these in your respective Catapult system.

You will be able to generate norms and

benchmarks for each player to compare against.

System permitting though, try and look at the live

data and promote conversation with players to adapt individual

loading. The reason we use PlayerLoad as

an inferred measure of fatigue is based on the

research of Akenhead and colleagues.

When conducting a repeated sprint protocol, they saw

decreased sprint performance, which is an increase in

sprint time, came with a decrease in player

load caused by decreased vertical stiffness as well

as increased ground contact time.

Such changes can also be observed

in the fingerprint drill data once

normal player load values were established.

If users have access to heart rate data,

they should also look at the internal measure

of load and using heart rate exertion.

This can also be shown as a ratio by

dividing by total distance or player load, higher values will

denote a great internal cost to the athletes per

meter or per player load unit, respectively.

Finally, running symmetry is also a powerful tool for

injury mitigation as well as return to play.

Running symmetry in OpenField is a measure of load

imbalance between left and right leg when running.

However, this is only available for Vector

Core Plus and Vector pro clients.

It’s important to note that players will rarely

have a perfect balance between left and right

foot, so we should look to build norms

for each athlete using a consistent protocol.

Once we have these references, we can look

at differences compared to the norm and

consider standard deviation in a running series.

So thanks for listening.

I hope you found that useful.

Please continue to check in with the

Unleash platform for more content like this.

I’ll see you next time. Bye.