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Further reading - SMART goals

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Over the last couple of blog articles, we've had a look at the notion of investment and return, the idea that what you invest in today and consistently everyday, you may only see the benefit of in years to come. We also looked at the difference between dreams and goals. In this article, we wanted to cover one more element on this topic, looking at SMART goal setting for sports performance.

Now we've already established that dreams are good and we all need them. We don't mean the kind of dreaming you do at night while you're sleeping, but the kind you do during the day with your eyes wide open. Having a dream or aspiration for your career is important to inspire you day to day and see you through the tough times. And, we want you to dream big. But, a dream simply inspires and motivates. It's only by turning your dream into goals that you will make your dream a reality.

We believe that when you set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time based goals you are more likely to achieve them. That's because it'll attract focus and action. It'll also help with your development and review. As we measure your performance against your goals, we can review, reassess and make adjustments to your training to continuously improve and bring you closer and closer to your dream.
Specific
Specific goals are far better than general ones. Rather than a general statement, we're looking for goals with substance and the more detailed the better. As a guide, we look to answer the 'W' questions - Who, What, Where, When, Which and Why.

Who - who is involved?

What - what do I want to accomplish?

Where - identify a location

When - establish a time frame

Which - identify requirements and constraints

Why - specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal

Measurable
By measurable, we mean the criteria to base achievement on. What would success look like?

How will you know if you've met your goal? It's also important for tracking purposes and measuring your progress. It'll allow you to keep an eye on where you are compared to where you want to be and if needs be, to make changes to what you're doing to help you stay on track to reaching your goals.
Achievable
Nothing dampens the spirits more than not doing what you've set out to do all because the bar was set too high in the first place. You can avoid the disappointment by setting achievable goals. We believe you can reach any goal when you set goals systematically and progressively, establishing a reasonable time frame that allows you to meet them. This way, goals that might seem out of reach at first, come closer. Not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and develop to match them.
Realistic
We encourage you to set high goals that will stretch you but, they must be realistic at the same time. The most important thing is to make sure your goals are set to establish progress towards your ultimate sporting dream. The phrase 'the more you do, the more you get done' comes to mind. In the same way, when you set high goals that represent a challenge, you're more likely to achieve them than when you set low goals. That's because the challenge motivates you. Whereas a lower goal, one that's perhaps even too easy to meet, won't motivate you to get it done.
Time based
The best way to achieve your goals it by setting a time frame or deadline for when you need to get it done by. This will spur you on and give you the sense of urgency you need. Earlier, we mentioned your goals being progressive. It's important to set short, medium and longer-term goals, all with the aim of helping you achieve your ultimate sporting dream. By breaking it down into stages, you're more likely to be successful.

Now we've looked at the key principles of setting goals, it's time to set yours. Here are a few tips for setting your goals:

Write them down

Write them in the positive not the negative

Write it down in as much detail as possible

Put it up somewhere you can see it daily

Need some help with your SMART goal setting?
We'd love to hear from you and help you achieve your dreams this year. Simply send us an email to hello@oneathlete.co.uk

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SMART goal setting in sport - OneAthlete

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Over the last couple of blog articles, we've had a look at the notion of investment and return , the idea that what you invest in today and consistently everyday, you may only see the benefit of in years to come. We also looked at the difference between dreams and goals .

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This blog contains good background information about monitoring an athlete - how to plan the testing/assessment and how to make sense of the information.

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Athlete monitoring and data tracking has recently become an increasingly talked-about aspect in the high-performance sports landscape, and while every coach has done some monitoring in their time, whether it be through conversation or observation, the advent of new sports technology has opened up a vast number of new avenues through which to monitor one's athletes. The only problem with the newly introduced technological modalities are the costs associated, which may limit the availability for coaches to use them. However, with a little hard work on the back end, and some creativity, coaches could very easily turn a "have-not" program into a "have-some," using readily available software. This article is based on my experience using monitoring at the collegiate level.
Plan - What data are you trying to collect? What is useful? What is not?
Before sitting down for our first concept meeting the staff I was part of did quite a bit of research on athlete monitoring questionnaires - Mainly the Hooper-Mackinnon and the RESTQ-Sport. We used already established variables, but allowed the process to be very creative, and as such, initially came up with over 25 variables to include in our surveys. Some variables, such as sleep quality and quantity, were easy to include and were met with no hesitation by anyone from our staff. Conversely, other variables were a tough sell, and not easy to justify - For example, being largely a commuter campus, length of commute was one of our initial suggestions. As we pared down questions, we were clear that we did not want to create a survey that took a long time to complete (or interpret, for our sake), and would have the athletes fall asleep from boredom while they completed it. Ultimately, we whittled down the list to 10 variables that we thought would provide the sport coaches and our staff with some valuable feedback, while also choosing variables that we thought we could make an impact on - whether through intervention of our own, or through education. Acknowledging that they may be issues that our 10-question survey would not account for, we added a fairly straight-forward "comments" section.

To our surveys we also added a second portion asking athletes to highlight body parts in which they were experiencing pain or injury, hoping to identify any areas that we had the opportunity to improve through our training programs, and to help our athletic training and physiotherapy staff identify potential or unresolved issues.
Designing the Survey - Making it concise for the staff and the athletes
In the design of the survey, we had two main goals in mind - Making it easy for the athletes to complete and follow, while also making it easy for us as staff to implement, collect, and analyze. Since it was to be the first time we tried to implement the surveys, we chose to carry out our surveys in a paper and pen format. While this was not the most environmentally friendly manner in which to carry out our surveys, it was the easiest way to implement given our resources.

As a scale, we chose that each question would be out of 5 - Again, making it easier for us to calculate a score, an making it so that the athletes did not have to think too much when distinguishing their appropriate answer. They layout of the survey was such that the questions followed a numbered sequence, and like questions were grouped together. The scales for each question had descriptor statements for the lowest and highest rating, ensuring the athletes always had a guide as to what we were looking for with each question.

Aesthetically, we ensured that the surveys looked very professional, with the colour scheme following that of our athletic teams. This was a subtle aspect of the design which drew positive reaction from the athletes and comparisons to professional teams from incoming players.
Communication & Implementation - Ensuring Staff and Athletes are On Board
Through the conception of our surveys, we realized that the way we communicated our intent and planned delivery would be an essential step in ensuring the accurate implementation. We knew that if we did not provide a well thought-out explanation to the coaches, they were less likely to allow us practice or meeting time to implement the surveys. We also wanted them to be aware that this was not a tool through which we would try to implement changes to their practice routines, merely one that would complement their (and our) intuition about the status of the athletes, and gain some insight as to where positive changes could be made.

Getting the athletes on board was another step which posed its own challenges, and we knew we would encounter a variety of issues - Apathy, compliance, and desirability bias among them. To counter these potential issues, we were thorough in our explanation that this monitoring tool was there to improve their experience as a student-athlete, to make sure we knew if there were issues that needed to be addressed, and to best formulate solutions if any issues arose - We did not want them to think we were passing on information by which a coach could label a player "soft" or "high-maintenance." We also asked our athletes to communicate openly using the "comments" section of our survey. This was a place where they could elaborate or clarify issues, as well as share ideas of what could be done better. One thing that became apparent through the course of the first season we implemented the surveys was the need to keep the athletes updated on the entire process in order to maintain their compliance. As such, we granted interested athletes the opportunity to view their previous scores, but due to privacy and desirability bias concerns, we opted to not show them the results of the team during the course of the season. Prior to our second season of implementation, we did show athletes the graphical representation of the team over the course over the previous season. However, we made sure to keep results confidential, blacked out names on the display, and provided it without any decipherable order (i.e. alphabetical, positions, roster numbers).

As for implementation, in concert with the sport coaches, we chose to do so just before practices or at the start of team meetings - depending on what the coach thought was appropriate. This set-up allowed us to have the greatest number of players together at the same time, and hold variables like time of day, constant for each team. On average, we conducted the surveys every 2-3 days to ensure it didn't become a tedious task for the athletes, and chose not to conduct any surveys on game days so as to not disrupt the athletes' regular routine.
Analyzing and Interpreting the Data - Making sense of the numbers
The analysis of the data was done entirely on Excel. The wellness survey values for each athlete was entered, giving us a value out of 50 for each player (computed to a number out of 100), a team average for each survey question, as well as a team average as a whole. We came up with a formula to give us a value for the pain survey, and then combined the two values for an overall value. Due to the work we put in on the excel document on the back end, as soon as we entered the data we were presented with bar graphs for the wellness survey, the pain survey, as well as the combined score. We also tracked the overall scores longitudinally, with each day being assigned a colour between red (bad) and bright green (very good), depending on the value.

The visual output allowed us and the sport coaches to quickly and efficiently digest the data by comparing the bar graphs and colour output of the overall values. We also scanned for team trends for a particular value on the wellness survey.

As we started to accumulate more data, we started to take a mean value for each player, as well as a standard deviation, in order to give us an idea of improvement (or deterioration), as well as daily variance.
Our Learning Outcome - Reflection on Execution
As a whole, the best outcome of implementing the surveys was the learning experience it provided us as coaches. Analyzing team trends for a given wellness value proved to be one of the best indicators as to what we could affect change on. For example, the surveys showed that a vast majority of athletes were not hydrating enough throughout the day. In order to remedy this situation, we suggested to the sport coaches that water bottles be included as part of the kit players received. This simple action resulted in improved hydration scores as measured by our survey. During implementation, through conversation with our sport coaches, we also found the need to individualize surveys for other values coaches were interested in - For example, one coach asked for there to be a value for "academic stress" on the wellness survey.

The design of the survey also changed slightly, and we found that when dealing with college-aged athletes, something as simple as ensuring the body map on the pain survey had features to distinguish front from back (with a smiley face), made our job of interpreting the data much easier.

Lastly, we saw value for also interpreting a given athlete's information as an individual - Rather than comparing him or her to the rest of the team, we compared them to their previous results, and to their variance. This should have been a given, as some athletes will rate themselves much more stringently.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to us was to see how much a big win or loss impacted the results for the survey as a whole, as well as individual questions. Even if two games were played under similar conditions, at the same time of day, same location, and same time during the academic calendar, players would rate themselves much higher after a win than after a loss.

As mentioned previously, we did not want to collect data for the sake of data, so after carrying out the surveys, and creating some interventions to better serve the wellness of the athlete, we sat down and further refined the survey to better identify areas of opportunity. This process was best described by Dr. John P. Sullivan at the Boston Sports Medicine Performance Group Summer Seminar this past May, and is outlined in the diagram below.
Final Thoughts - A Realm of Possibility
There are a few pieces of advice that I would share with coaches looking to implement their own surveys. First off, start with something relatively simple. Secondly, remain in constant communication with the coaches in order to ensure that the data is relevant to them, and how to shape the process in order to best serve them.

Lastly, when you have a good survey in place, start to think outside of the box in terms of data collection, and see what data you can collect to better serve your athletes. Using one of our teams as an example, we wanted to look at the relationship between minutes played and survey scores (at a glance, not much relationship, but we wanted to look at the effect it had on individual players). We also wanted to look at quantifying training load for practice, and use it as a learning experience for our sport coaches, as well as a means of tracking total work load over the course of a season.

Ultimately, with a little work on the back end, good communication with our sport coaches, and a good relationship with our athletes, we were able to create a working system which both allowed us to monitor our athletes, and was open to further opportunities for improvement.

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Athlete Monitoring on a Budget - An Experience

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Athlete monitoring and data tracking has recently become an increasingly talked-about aspect in the high-performance sports landscape, and while every coach has done some monitoring in their time, whether it be through conversation or observation, the advent of new sports technology has opened up a vast number of new avenues through which to monitor one's athletes.

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Athlete monitoring tools are all the rage these days..DATA DATA DATA! Data is only as good as you use it though! But for those who are working with athletes and teams on a budget here is a cool way you can do it exactly the way you want to, with the only cost being your time and energy. If you don't have the time to do that, see my details in the contact page and I can help you there!

This post gives you a way of collecting data from your athletes the exact same way you would through an app. Your athletes will have a link to a questionnaire that they can use on their phones or laptops and send the data to an online google docs spreadsheet. From here you can format the raw data to your liking using google docs, or transferring it over to excel. I have yet to find an athlete monitoring system that caters to my needs and wants, which is why I use excel extensively.
Step 1. Getting the right tools.
Make sure you have google docs and excel.
Step 2. Creating your questionnaire.
You will need to create a questionnaire for your athletes to fill out. One of the easiest ways to do this is by using google forms. Once you know how many pieces of information you need (don't go bananas here - keep it simple!), you can set up your questions as you like. The question type will determine how it all looks to the athlete. For example, a lot of the question types I use are 'choose from a list'. This gives a drop down menu and keeps things nice and clean for the athlete, especially for those logging on using their phones.

The picture above shows how it looks when setting it up the form questionnaire. This is taken from a wellness questionnaire that looks for information such as fatigue and muscle soreness with a scale of 1-7. You simply select the 'choose from a list option', and then fill in the type of wording and scale you wish to use. Below is how it will look to the athlete. This screenshot is of the workload questionnaire but it looks the same in wellness!

The drop down box is much cleaner and user friendly. The two pictures above are samples from a workload questionnaire that looks at session duration and session rpe. As you can see the box 'activity' is a mandatory question - this option helps with clumsy athletes who may forget certain info.

You can also add in images above or below your questions, such as rpe scales and hydration charts to help athletes input more accurate info.
Step 3. Sending the questionnaire to athletes.
The easy part is setting up the form with the questions you want. Once you have your questions finished for whichever type of questionnaire you want, simply click the view live form for the version that the athletes will see.

Once you are in the live form version, copy the link address, as highlighted by the red circle (with my link missing!), then paste the link into an email or text to your athletes. Your athletes can then bookmark this page on their laptops, or simply save the webpage to the main menu on their phone for quick and easy access. (Helpful tip - get your athletes to set daily alarms to complete monitoring!).

Here's how a sample questionnaire looks on a windows phone.
Step 4. Collecting and organising the data.
GREAT! NOW YOU HAVE YOUR METHOD OF COLLECTION - NOW WHAT TO DO WITH THE DATA?

This is the tricky and time consuming part, depending on the type data you are looking for. The picture below illustrates how the wellness and workload data looks in the form responses page in google docs. To access this page simply click the 'view responses' button on the original form page (a separate file will automatically be set up google docs anyway).

The first picture shows exactly how google organizes the data. Very bland and not too easy to follow sometimes, especially when you have a lot of data! Unfortunately, this raw data cannot be formatted to your liking, if you try to change the data format it simply disappears!

Luckily, there are a few ways around this. You can copy the raw data into excel and format it as you like, or you can set up a new tab in the same spreadsheet, this is a quicker way to see the data in a new format as it updates automatically and saves the hassle of transferring it to an excel spreadsheet.

If you open up a new tab in the same spreadsheet, then simply input a formula (Importrange - shown below) that copies all the data automatically from the main tab and uploads it to the new 2nd tab. In this 2nd tab you can format the data to your liking. As you can see I've created a tab called 'Wellness Monitor'.
Step 5. Importing the raw data to a custom tab.
In order to make sure the data syncs automatically with your new tab, you need to insert the same type of formula into cell A1 on your new tab. THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE OF THE FORMULA YOU NEED, NOT THE ACTUAL FORMULA! Your formula will be different because the web address underlined below will be unique to your document.
=IMPORTRANGE("https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AxfplZjO", "Form Responses 1!A1:I2000") - THIS LINK WILL NOT WORK FOR YOU, YOU MUST CREATE ONE YOURSELF!
This is a sample version that is in my address bar when I am in the form responses tab. The only change you will have to make is the blue part highlighted in the formula. The importrange formula will import every bit of info from A1 to I2000 in the tab that is named "Form Responses 1", which is the main responses page. (Remember when you get over 2,000 responses you will need to widen the formula past I2000).

When you are in the main responses page, copy and paste the full link that is in the address bar and put it between two quotation marks, as I have underlined in the formula above. Also you must ensure you put an exclamation mark ! after the name of the form responses page.

Now your new tab should copy all the data automatically. To check if this is the case, simply change some data in the form responses page and see if the data changes in your new tab.
Step 6. Formatting the data to suit you.
Once you have the formula in correctly, you can format the columns as you wish. Below is my new monitor, I set up conditional formatting to change the colour of the tab if a certain word is entered. I also moved all the text to the centre of the cell and changed the timestamp column to show only the date of entry, as opposed to date and time.

You can see a 'Yes' in the injury column changes the tab red and I have a colour scale for each wellness marker that changes depending on which word pops up. This make things easier for coaches to spot any potential red flags.

To do this click the format button in the toolbar and select conditional formatting. Depending on what you want you can format a cell to change colour if a certain text appears in the column, or you can have a colour scale that changes depending on a number. As you can see the hydration status scale increases in darkness based on an increasing number.

If you wish - you can set up the questionnaire so the athlete only has to select a number, and put instructions above the question such as what each number represents. This makes it easier to use the data in excel for things like pivot tables, but you take the risk of athletes not reading he instructions and just picking a number without fully knowing what that number represents. The same can be said for the RPE columns, as I'll go through next.
Step 7. Using data to automatically quantify workload. (RPE x Duration)
The wellness monitor was one of the easier ones to develop, the workload monitor is slightly trickier if you go down the route I did. If you scroll up to the google form where I have the rpe scale you can see that I chose to use numbers and words for the rpe scale as opposed to just looking for a number out of ten.

This was mainly due to my experience with a lot of athletes who would give a number out of ten, then they would look at the actual words beside the number on the rpe scale and change their mind! So having the words within the question makes it easier for more accurate information to be collected. Alternatively, you could just place a picture of an rpe scale above your question, and simply ask for a number, which would save you all the work that I'll now go through, however, some athletes may still ignore or miss the scale even if it is right in front of them!

Using a question with words and numbers together causes some problems with the form responses, as it literally copies the answer as it is, i.e. numbers and words, as you can see in the RPE column. If you are looking to quantify training load by using session duration X rpe then this is where problems occur as you cannot multiply a number by a word!

Like the wellness monitor I previously mentioned, I've used another tab to automatically copy the data from the responses tab to a newer tab, where I can format the data to my liking. I've also added in some extra columns to automatically add up total daily workloads.

Some players will have double sessions in a day, so I have a Load 1 and Load 2 column and then a Total Load column. Load 1 and Load 2 columns are the sum of session duration x rpe.
Step 8. Formula for multiplying worded RPE with a numbered duration.
However, as mentioned before, multiplying words and numbers defies the laws of mathematics! That colourful formula in the picture above helps get around this (take a breath, this is a beast of a formula!) So in the Load 1 column I put the following formula into cell O2:

This simply states that if each column contains a certain text the you multiply E2 (which is session duration in minutes) by a certain number, depending on the text in the column.

So if G2 (the rpe column), says "0 - rest" then E2, the session duration column, is multiplied by 0. This continues all the way up to 10. This is how you get a session load using duration x rpe.

In my case I have two columns for double sessions so I used the same formula for the second load, but just changed the column letters:

Once you have this formula you can copy and paste it down as many cells as you want, so when the data automatically updates on a daily basis, then your new formula will too!

This gives me a nice number now which helps quantify daily training loads for each player. You can put this formula into excel if you wish so that when you copy and paste the raw data into excel it will add it up in that spreadsheet, as I have done below.
Step 9. Making automatic graphs from your data.
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Simply open excel and copy the data from the modified workload monitor tab and paste it exactly as it into an excel worksheet. Then set up a pivot table on another tab and select the data you wish to use in your table. (You can easily google how to set up a pivot table, there are lots of good lessons out there). You then have unlimited ways to set up the data as you see fit using the raw data you have collected from google docs.

So there it is, go have a break and try digest all that it's fairly thorough, but hopefully this post has made the work a little easier and you have a free tool to help monitor your athletes a little better. Microsoft excel have some great tutorial sites on using excel pivot tables but have a play around with them yourself and experiment a little!

Alternatively can purchase my athlete monitoring tool here, which takes care of most of the work - all you have to do is build the questionnaire and copy the data from google docs to the spreadsheet and you'll be set!

REMEMBER this information isn't gospel, it isn't something to be used to pull athletes from training and matches because a red flag shows up. It is simply a conversation starter for you and your athletes. "How are you today, I seen you're a bit stressed lately, how's everything going?". This is a much better way of getting quality information from your athletes. Also every athlete will not be where you want them to be all the time. For some athletes feeling worse than normal seven days a week is, in fact, normal! Some may be a 10/10 the morning after a tough pre-season session, over time, when you have collected a good lot of data, you will have a good idea of group and individual norms.

Hopefully this will helps provide a better way to monitor your athletes, start some conversations and help structure your training days, weeks and blocks a lot better!

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CREATE A FREE ATHLETE WELLNESS AND WORKLOAD MONITORING TOOL

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Athlete monitoring tools are all the rage these days..DATA DATA DATA! Data is only as good as you use it though! But for those who are working with athletes and teams on a budget here is a cool way you can do it exactly the way you want to, with the only cost being your...

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Does this change what you are monitoring and why? Consider p.219 onwards in textbook

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The trainer should ask the athlete if they have had any previous medical issues e.g. Heart conditions

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Why does the coach need to monitor the athlete?

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Why does the coach need to monitor the athlete?

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Health related questions should be asked by the coach before the programme

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Health related questions should be asked by the coach before the programme

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What questions should the trainer ask the athlete?

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Long term - fitness test
Short term - MHR, blood pressure and conversation

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Increase in PEF ( peak expiratory flow

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Fitness tests

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check the quality of something over a period of time.

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Waist to hip ratio - short term

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Setting out short term and long term

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BMI

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Blood pressure

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Long term: Fitness testing should take place at the start, during & at the end of the training programme 

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Long term: Fitness testing should take place at the start, during & at the end of the training programme 

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Long term
Muscular hypertrophy

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Heart rate