Key codes and quotes on the theme—optimal training load monitoring requires objective measurement of training load
| Codes | Quotes (emphasis added) |
| Objective measurement of training load can complement existing training load monitoring in AMS | ‘The study that we did…with the sensors…it was really interesting to know that we could see the increase in load because sometimes when we do AMS (…) I didn’t know how to rate it but it was really good knowing…how many strokes we’re doing. This is the rate it was whereas at this time, it was this and that.’ Athlete 1 ‘Having some kind of device that we can wear in the pool that can give coaches…numbers of how much load we’re specifically doing, which can match our self-report data and can match the number of minutes that they set aside. Having something like that, I think would be really interesting in terms of loading. It just gives another kind of dimension to that.’ Athlete 15 |
| Objective measurement of training load can assist with consistency of information and communication | ‘So if we go AFL…you have things that can measure both the internal load and the external load that the players go through. I think in water polo there’s currently no real external load measure…it is very hard for us to know exactly how much they’ve swum or thrown the ball…that’s just another piece of the puzzle that actually helps that whole process of everyone talking together, your communication with the athlete, with staff and then having some numbers to back up your decision or to check and tick your progression or your plan…’ Support Staff 1 ‘I think that, you know the psychological support, the monitoring through the sensors, there’s the physical support from the physio perspective and strength and conditioning perspective…sitting around a table and having the time to actually plan it and map that recovery out with the athlete at the table…just constantly monitoring it and…reflecting and evaluating how it’s going and…involving the athlete every step of the way and providing them…100% support at all levels’ Coach 3 |
| An ideal scenario of training load monitoring is monitoring training activity in the water | ‘I see it being done better. Do arbitrary units have a place in load management? Absolutely. Has water polo as a sport, hung their hat wholly and solely on arbitrary units for a long time, which I disagree with. Absolutely…but it very much now comes down to, for me, what’s the type of training and what do the coaches want to do, and actually tapping into those expertise of what the best training program looks like…and there’s some other [aquatic] playing tracking technology we’ve played around with, which again is just giving us more understanding of what the game demands of the sport are, to therefore help us do better planning of training prescription.’ Support Staff 2 ‘I know that (physio—deidentified) here has developed a sensor…to monitor the load on shoulders. So, I’d love for us to be able to put those sensors on the athlete every session and monitor, well, firstly, plan it and monitor it and then that will give us an opportunity to readjust it if we need to as we go, because that’ll give us some really good data.’ Coach 3 |
| The training reporting tool should contain/currently does not contain volume and intensity of passing, shooting and blocking | ‘In terms of how they do the loading at the moment, how they categorize everything, like passing and shooting, water polo movements, water polo drills. (…) So, I'd be curious to see, okay, well, they say passing is, by itself, it’s like 20 minutes or whatever and then water polo drills is like 120. Okay, how much of that 120 is then another additional passing or shooting?’ Athlete 12 ‘So can we show that a shot is getting faster or are they using more rotation through their thoracic? Like, how can we kind of better track it ourselves rather than just looking at it and going, “Oh, yeah, that looks better, that looks faster,"…having some data behind that and showing progression (…) that’s one side of it is as a kind of player tracking type…movement progression tracking mechanism…it just gives us more concrete information to base some of our intuitions off.’ Support Staff 1 |