BENCHMARK54 - AN AMAZING TOOL TO MONITOR INJURIES & PERFORMANCE

Few weeks after I took charge of the International Futsal Academy (IFA) as new Head of Coaching & Sports Science I had a fantastic meeting in Loughborough University with Dr Laurence Heslop, co-founder of Benchmark54. In that meeting we agreed the use of the Benchmark54 platform within the IFA teams for the season 2014-2015 at free cost (thank you very much Dr. Heslop, I still appreciate it).

Now, almost 5 years after, working for Bay Area Futsal Club in California (USA), I have decided to review this fantastic platform that has grown amazingly. 

Benchmark54 system is multi-sport and multi user. It has four main attributes which allow you to manage your team across all disciplines and improve the integration between departments. Benchmark54 provides a fully comprehensive electronic medical record system with all the tools you would expect. Also, Benchmark54 helps you with the player load management as it tracks all activities and intensity in training and matches and your own specific GPS parameters in one place. Thirdly, the system helps sports science data record and analysis. Finally, Benchmark54 has a research driven data dashboard that brings all the data together, with inbuilt calculations and powerful ways to visualise data (data visualisation and analysis).

Benchmark54 allow you to:

• Add training data, attendance, duration and intensity. Upload GPS files and automatically match data.
• Record physiological, wellbeing, fitness and screening data.
• Add all injuries and illness and indicate effect on availability.
• Link injuries & illness with other data (load and other physiological measure for example).
• Track performance, injury incidence, team and individual player stats through their automated injury analytics dashboard.
• Review the year-on-year performance against historical data & league wide comparative data.
• Be part of their growing research community. Raining the standards in team sports medicine.

In the video above for example you can observe the training load, the monotony and the strain on one specific day. Also, you can observe the acute: chronic ratio and where the players are placed (high risk zone for soft tissue injury, moderate risk zone for soft tissue injury or sweet spot).

Finally, in the picture below you can see a whole month players availability, all the training sessions and their duration, games and minutes played, if players were missing and their reason...

This is only a briefly and small example of what Benchmark54 can provide to your organisation to know more about injury analytics and the power of data to support more effective athlete monitoring and injury prevention and management. 

COMBINED ELECTROSTIMULATION & PLYOMETRIC TRAINING

The “Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness” has recently published one of our papers. The full reference and its abstract are below:

• Effect of combined electrostimulation and plyometric training on 30 meters dash and triple jump. Benito-Martínez, E., Martínez-Amat, A., Lara-Sánchez, A. J., Berdejo-del-Fresno, D., Martínez-López, E. J. The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness. 2013 August; 53(4):387-395.

Aim: The aim of this paper was to analyze the effects of training combining plyometrics (PT) and neuromuscular electrostimulation (ES) on speed training and triple jump. The study consisted on the application of an electrostimulation protocol and plyometric jumps to four groups of young athletes (Control, G II, G III and G IV).

Methods: Eighty-four young athletes took part in the study (40 girls and 44 boys). All of them were sprinters (100 and 200 meters dash, and 100 and 110 hurdles meters), their mean age, weight and height being 15.9±1.4 years old, 58.53±8.05 kg, and 1.68±0.07 m, respectively. After 8 weeks of training, a 30-meter sprint launched test –time being measured by photoelectric cells – and a triple jump test from static position were completed. Repeated measures ANCOVA were used.

Results: The only group that improved significantly in the speed test (P<0.001) relative to the control group was G IV. In the triple jump test, improvements were significant, (P<0.05) and (P<0.01), in G II and G IV, respectively, relative to the control group. The results of ES + PT combined training offered no significant differences in either speed test and triple jump by gender.

Conclusion: The most effective training aimed at improving the speed of 30 m is simultaneous combined training. Regarding triple jump, the results showed significant improvements in the performance of athletes who used both simultaneous combined training and used ES followed by plyometrics. However, no significant improvement was observed after PT training prior to ES.

COMBINED ELECTROSTIMULATION & PLYOMETRIC TRAINING

This new post is just to let you know that a new paper has been published in the Journal of Human Sport & Exercise, with ISSN 1988-5202. Its whole reference is as follows: 

•  Benito-Martínez, E.,Lara-Sánchez, A.J., Berdejo-del-Fresno, D. and Martínez-López, E.J. Effects of  combined electrostimulation and plyometric training on vertical jump and speed tests. Journal of Human Sport and Exercise. 2011; 6(4):603-615.

 Since I thought it may be of interest to some of you, here you can see the abstract:

The aim of this study was to determine the performance evolution of a group of athletes after 8 weeks of training that combined electrostimulation (NM ES) and plyometrics (PT). 78 medium level sprinter athletes participated, 40 women and 38 men (age, 15.9±1.4 years old, body mass index, 20.5±1.68 kg/m2; weight 58.53±8.05 kg; height, 1.68±0.07 m). The sample was randomized into four groups [Control (PT only), NM ES + PT, PT + NM ES, and Simultaneous (plyometric jumps were performed through the passage of current). Improvements were obtained in the Abalakov jump of 3.57% (p<0.01), 13.51% (p<0.001), 1.23% (p<0.01), and 0.77%, and in the sprint of 0.45%, 3.87% (p<0.05), 4.56% (p<0.01) and 7.26% p<0.001 for the control group, NM ES + PT group, PT + NM ES group, and Simultaneous group, respectively. It was concluded that a) improvement in vertical jump requires the application of the NM ES prior to PT; b) the sprinter athlete must combine the workout simultaneously or apply the ES after the PT training; and c) in sportspeople that require improvement in both the vertical jump and speed tests (e.g. basketball) the simultaneous method is not recommended, the order of application of NM ES and PT being non-determinant. Finally, the time needed to obtain significant improvement in strength training through a combination of NM ES and PT is substantially lower (15 days) than the time needed to improve speed (30 days).