Central Washington University Maximising Performance with SPT
D1 College Rugby team, the Central Washington University Wildcats, have been using SPT GPS since July 2018 and the current team is infused with young and very talented players.
Head Rugby Coach, Todd Thornley, shares his thoughts on the SPT tracking system and how he uses the data to effectively manage his players in training and match day.
"SPT gives you an idea of the match demands at our level. We wore them in games and then we could look at the data post game and see the match demands. Then you can match up these demands in training and make sure you hit those certain metrics during the week.
That was valuable because you don’t want to over work too much, and you don’t want to under work too much. The ability to use the metrics you gain from a big game and integrate it into your sessions and weekly prep was invaluable to us.
If it’s a feasible option for you, get it because it puts data behind how hard you think they’re working. The ability to add quantitative values to qualitative observations is huge and allows you to get the most out of your athletes.
SPT do a really great job in their first interface in terms of just giving you certain metrics and don’t dive in too deep. You get the understanding of basic things like high intensity meters, total meters, number of contacts and then figure out how you can implement that in your weekly preparations.
So for your bigger boys, you’re looking at how many times they exert impacts and then obviously high intensity meters. It’s all well and good running 6, 7000, 8000 meters, but what sort of work was that and how hard was that work is probably the two biggest things we look at so high intensity meters is a big one for us.
SPT simplify things for you, and they give the ability for players to log in and view their data and the players take a special interest in that. It makes it very competitive in training too, when you pair two players in the same position or if they are vying for the same spot, you pair them together and they can compete against each other and can see who is working harder. From my point of view, it has added a lot to our program".
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