CHIP SCHAEFER,
DIRECTOR OF SPORTS PERFORMANCE

Schaefer works with the Bulls organization today as their Director of Sports Performance, where he oversees the team’s athletic training, strength and conditioning, sports nutrition, and sports psychology.

INTERVIEW WITH CHIP SCHAEFER

HOW DO YOU PREPARE YOUR ATHLETES TO COMPETE AN ENTIRE LENGTHY NBA SEASON?

“It’s kind of changed over the years. The nature of athletic training years ago was very, what I would call, ‘modality centric’ where you’d hook up a guy to a stim-unit and move on to the next guy. It was almost like being a cook with watching four pots on a stove simmering and you can take care of all four. With the nature now, it’s more hands-on while requiring more manual therapy. You literally need more bodies to do it. Other things like the advance of electronic health records require much more administrative responsibility. The staffs have grown more organically with the increased demand. The other change has been that summers have become more formal in nature, and with higher expectations.

Once upon a time, when the NBA season ended, everyone put a ‘Gone Fishing’ sign on their door and that was it until training camp started next year. Other guys had other jobs or went back to school, but now we have guys in the weight room a week after the season ends training. Sometimes summer leagues have become very extensive and demanding, and sometimes, as a healthcare professional in this industry, the goal would always be to improve health care outcomes and decrease injuries. I’m not sure we’ve been accomplishing that, so I’m constantly trying to assess how to do that.

HOW DO YOU PREPARE YOUR ATHLETES TO COMPETE AN ENTIRE LENGTHY NBA SEASON?

The schedule was 82 games decades ago and it’s still 82 games, but the league is trying to minimize back-to-back games or situations like four games in five nights in four different cities or five games in seven nights. Somehow, guys got through it.

I’m not sure we’re doing the best job we can with this sort of me helping people meet the expectations and the demand for the sport. It’s hard for a reason. A marathon is 26.2 miles, and it’s tough but it’s supposed to be tough. That’s how I look at the NBA. It’s hard to play 82 games and then play another 20 games in the playoffs, but that’s what makes it so rewarding when you’re sitting there spraying champagne in June. That’s why you see that elation on people’s faces because the journey is so difficult” 

It’s hard to play 82 games and then play another 20 games in the playoffs, but that’s what makes it so rewarding when you’re sitting there spraying champagne in June.

If the guys are away from here I can customize it to their individual needs, for example quarterbacks, kickers. That has been a huge asset for us. Also with our injured players, we can individualize the workouts for them while they are rehabbing.

Click here to learn how CoachMePlus helps prepare athletes for game day success.

WHAT TYPE OF DATA ARE YOU COLLECTING DURING THE SEASON WITH THE COACHMEPLUS PROGRAM?

There are a number of things. Obviously, we look at all sorts of biometric stuff that we’re tracking like weights, body fat percentages, and workloads. The big thing for me personally, I look extensively at the in-game data on players that we get from every arena’s in-house camera system (Sports View) that tracks payer movement, and there are dozens of metrics that are derived from that. Varying speeds, the volume of effort, distance running, amount of time in different speed zones, and things of that nature; there are a number of accelerations and decelerations through the different varying zones that are derived based on the max speed that a player trains. It’s all very complex algorithms built into their data.

We consider the coaching staff and management to have very valuable input beyond ours, so we’ll know how to drive our offseason programming to their recommendations.

To me, the offseason is for improving skill development and improving yourself physically, whether that means addressing some biomechanical anomalies that may be contributing to some soft tissue or joint injuries, and just improving performance. Running faster, jumping higher, moving quicker. Then improving your body composition, improving nutritional habits and improving rest recovery habits are all ways to become a better professional basketball player in the offseason. Those things can be addressed optimally at that time too, but you’re not dealing with all the stress of travel and everything. That’s the time to improve yourself physically.”

WHAT DO YOU FOCUS ON DUWHAT ARE SOME METHODS THAT HIGH SCHOOLS WITH A SMALLER STAFF CAN USE TO ELEVATE THEIR SPORTS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT?RING THE OFFSEASON?

“That’s a great question. I was recently talking to a friend that works in the industry who has some peripheral affiliations with the NBA and their youth and development program. We talked about some of the great things that can be addressed with earlier intervention that can be used at the high school team years. There are a couple of things that can be done.

I think that we see a lot of movement abnormalities in young people that, with earlier intervention, can be addressed more effectively. A lot of those things can be derived from different movement screens, and there’s no shortage of those out there.

The National Academy of Sports Medicine has some movements as simple as an overhead squat or a single leg squat. There’s a FMS (Functional Movement Screen), a Y Balance Test; these are some things that if you watch an athlete or any person perform some simple functional movement patterns, you can see some mechanical movement restrictions or impairments or difference when compared bilaterally.

Those are some things, even at the high school age, that are just very simple exercises. That would also include some soft tissue mobilization, teaching kids the value of using a foam roller or using some basic rudimentary exercise that you can address things up and down that you can change. Addressing things at the Lumbo-Pelvic-Hip Complex, which is where a lot of issues start, all the way down to through the foot and ankle and up through the shoulder and cervical spine. All of these things can be improved upon.

Beyond that, even learning some of the most basic, proper weightlifting techniques at an early age can help kids get the ground running. If you start your freshman year in college and already know how to perform a nice good barbell back squat, a clean, a deadlift or some of these exercises with proper form, you hit the ground running and already start gaining ground.

I think learning how to move properly and learning how to strength train with proper technique and form at an early age can help. Those things don’t require a whole lot of technology or expense; you just need a bit of effort to learn some of these things. A lot of these things are available online. Little online certifications that are very simple that even a high school basketball coach or a high school athletic trainer could learn how to do, and I think there could be a heck of a lot of benefits out of it.”

See how CoachMePlus helps high school athletics utilize sports science.

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION YOU SHARE WITH YOUR ATHLETES?

“Given the demands of travel and the league nights, it’s rest and recovery. We have in the business kind of what we call a ‘dose response’ relationship of exercise, much like a dose response to medicine. If you take cough syrup and it says to take one tablespoon every four hours, and if you want to give the same cough medicine to your eight-year-old it might say one teaspoon every six hours. You’re getting a different dose, and that’s because it’s going to have a different response. An improper dose cannot only be ineffective, but also harmful.

More isn’t always better, and you have to understand that there’s a negative response to an excessive dose of exercise. That’s probably the biggest thing is the response relationship with exercising, rest and recovery, and the importance of rest and recovery in that relationship.”

DOES HAVING A CENTRALIZED DATA PLATFORM LIKE COACHMEPLUS HELP YOU COMMUNICATE WITH THE COACHING STAFF?

It’s really important for them to be able to understand the data that we’re collecting.

It’s one thing if I say that in last night’s game, Lauri Markkanen had a 1,545 mechanical workload, and it was his third straight game that he exceeded 1,500 and now he’s starting to complain about left knee pain. If I’m just throwing out numbers, it’s sort of abstract. If we’re sitting in a room and I’m projecting the images from my laptop to the big screen and I’m showing these spikes they can visually see, they get it. But if I’m just saying a number that’s floating in the air, it’s much harder for them to get it.

I don’t think it can be understated how important the visual representation of these things beyond the numerical representation is. We’re in the second year of our relationship with CoachMePlus, and we couldn’t be more pleased with how it’s gone.”

Click to see how CoachMePlus’ centralized platform can help you prepare to win. You can also click here to subscribe to our Applied Sports Science Weekly Digest.

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Before coming to Nashville in 2004, Good served as the Director of Speed, Strength and Conditioning for the West Coast Sports Medicine Foundation in Manhattan Beach, Calif. He served as the Assistant Speed, Strength and Conditioning Coach from 1997-99 with the Ice Dogs (IHL). And later held the same title with the Los Angeles Kings from 1999-2003. He also served as Strength and Conditioning Coordinator at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles from 1998-99.

Key Organizational Need: Daily Athlete Recovery Monitoring

PROBLEM

Optimal Athlete Hydration is one of the best-established ways to improve athletic performance and reduce injury risk. Coach David Good from the Nashville Predators needed a system to measure the fluid loss of the players and ensure they were rehydrating properly and preparing for the next game or practice. He was also seeking to educate the athletes so they would become more responsible and knowledgeable about what they needed to do to recover from activity. And, he needed them to embrace the realization that consistency was crucial – weigh-ins and hydration monitoring needed to be an automatic part of their day.

SOLUTION

CoachMePlus provided a complete hydration management system to Coach Good; allowing the Predators to track fluid loss after workouts and recommend specific drinks to their athletes. Players weight in before they begin training. Once they complete their assigned workouts, they weigh-out. At weigh-out, our custom algorithms create individualized hydration recommendations for each player which allow them to replenish their water, electrolytes, and potassium levels. The workflow allows Coach Good to manage the hydration levels of his entire team from one centralized location.

“CoachMePlus has allowed me to evolve the way I communicate information to our players, coaches, and management.”

RESULTS

CoachMePlus made it easy and simple for the players to follow the coaches’ methods and guidelines. Coach Good feels hydration is the easiest and most important variable to control regarding recovery: the individual fluid loss is less than it had been the past and players’ energy levels have remained at good levels throughout the grind of the season. The evidence can be seen in the team’s performance – the Predators have made it to the post-season in 4 out of the last 5 seasons.

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Eric Ciano is in his eleventh year with the Buffalo Bills and was voted as the NFL Strength and Conditioning Coach of the year by the Professional Football Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association in 2020. A Springfield College and University of Tennessee graduate, Ciano had previously worked with Georgia Tech Athletics prior to joining the Bills staff.

His background in college athletics gives him a unique perspective about the sport performance needs of athletes as they move up the ranks from high school standouts to collegiate competitors and then transition into professional athletes.

CoachMePlus sat down with Ciano to gain his perspective on how he has adapted the CM+ system into his sports performance regiment, the positive results he has witnessed and how he sees CoachMePlus progressively impacting the sport performance and sports science industry in the future.

Q & A WITH ERIC CIANO

WHEN DID YOU START USING COACHMEPLUS?

We’ve been using CoachMePlus for two years. We first started the application by starting out simple, and using the offseason workout app.

“It is very user-friendly, basically anywhere the players go they have the accessibility to workouts. It has made our job much easier because we are able to change a program on a weekly basis.”

If the guys are away from here I can customize it to their individual needs, for example quarterbacks, kickers. That has been a huge asset for us. Also with our injured players, we can individualize the workouts for them while they are rehabbing.

Click to see how CoachMePlus uses its workout builder to allow coaches to manage their athlete’s training.

TALK ABOUT USING THE ASSESSMENT MONITOR FOR DAILY PROGRAMMING.

“We actually use a lot of things in our daily program, and CM+ has helped us tremendously from a time management perspective.”

When our athletes walk in the building, the first thing they do is check out the monitor above the scale. It has all of their pictures on it, and everyone starts the morning as red. We have three tasks they have to complete every morning. When the athlete has completed all three of those tasks, their face initially turns green so we know everybody has completed that area of the testing. What’s nice about it is we don’t have to write everything down anymore, it automatically goes into my computer.

Also, for the athletes, they simply touch their face, the weight goes in, they do their questionnaire, and they move onto the next task, so it’s basically been real simple for our players. Easy to pick up, easy to use.

“By using this technology with the daily body weights questionnaire we are able to see this information in real-time and we’re able to make decisions on the spot.”

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF HAVING SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE INFORMATION IN ONE PLACE?

“By using CoachMePlus we are able to house all of our information from all of our different technologies in one place, helping us make informed decisions on athletes on a daily basis.”

From questionnaire and body weights to any GPS, HRV or sleep/fatigue data, we can look at each individual’s daily profile and make a decision if we need to make some adjustments to his workout and/or practice.

HOW HAS USING COACHMEPLUS IMPROVED COMMUNICATION AND COACHING WITH THE PLAYERS?

Communication has been improved amongst our staff, and throughout our players. As a staff, we can review all of the information and discuss any issues we see. Also, we can bring an athlete in and sit down with him and discuss what we are seeing on his profile and questionnaire, along with any of his measurements. We can talk about the areas he may need to improve in, maybe from a recovery standpoint in terms of sleep and nutrition – factors that can help keep him on the field longer.

HOW HAS USING COACHMEPLUS SAVED YOU TIME AND IMPROVED COACHING EFFICIENCY?

CoachMePlus has been a huge timesaver for us in terms of man-hours: everything is imported into one database, one page, and all I have to do is click on the person’s name, or I can click on the team report. We can pinpoint the data we want to see in specific graphs and reports.

“We have our data, our way and by having all this information in one uniform place it helps us make a better decision on athletes on a daily basis, and helps us relay the information to our staff as well as the coaching staff on the player’s status.”

I can actually be on the floor more, and be more of a coach than sitting behind Excel all day long putting together stat sheets, databases, and bar graphs.

Click to see how CoachMePlus integrates all of your data into one central platform.

WHEN YOU WERE MAKING TECHNOLOGY DECISIONS, WERE YOU LIMITED BY WHAT DEVICES YOU WERE ABLE TO PURCHASE?

By using CoachMePlus, we were actually able to adapt any software we had. There were a few companies they worked with to make sure all of our technology worked with their system. There were a few companies we did use that they did not have at the time and they worked to integrate them as well. They expanded with our needs.

HOW DO YOU SEE COACHMEPLUS BENEFITTING COLLEGIATE ATHLETES DIFFERENTLY THAN PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES?

I think this would be a great tool and a huge asset in the college setting. Being a former college strength coach, looking back at how I could have applied this to our program, from a recruiting stand point and from an athlete development standpoint, helping to make informed decisions on our athlete’s readiness every single day or from the day before. The number of athletes you have in a college program is huge, so from a communication and efficiency standpoint, it’s a much bigger impact.

I also think in the college setting it is a huge recruiting tool for athletes because you can also show recruits how your other athletes have developed over the years and you will be able to show them their progress over their career with you. It’s important on a yearly basis for the athlete to see how he has developed in all of the different areas, not just the weight room, but you can see body composition, body weight, strength training, etc.

Click to learn how CoachMePlus can help elite teams achieve game day success.

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How specifically does an MLB team like the Chicago White Sox use CoachMePlus to help train their athletes and win games? Watch, or read the transcript of, Senior Producer Bill Mahoney’s White Sox training video below.

HOW THEY TRACK THEIR ATHLETES DATA

In the CoachMePlus application, they’re able to get it on their phone they can see videos or comments or questions. They can send in a video that shoots right to me or Dale, or any of our staff and we can critique it and say, “No you need to do this, this, this”. So, it’s another way to communicate as far as the offseason. Click to learn how CoachMePlus lets you send workouts directly to your athletes.

SIMULATING GAMES IN THE GYM

I think our program is designed for specific actions that we make on the field. There are a lot of good lifts out there, but you have to pay attention to the action and movement patterns that are portrayed on the field and what we try and do is come back inside the gym, see if we can manipulate and make an exercise something that looks like or emulates something that happens on the field.

COACHMEPLUS USABILITY

It’s very easy to navigate through. For the players, they’re always on their phone whether in the weight room or not you know if they’re pulling programs or things of that nature you know it’s the PDA this is what we carry around and can just log in and get our work done that way. CoachMePlus’ full sports science suite is easy to use and drives results.

USING SPORTS SCIENCE TO BECOME A WORLD SERIES TEAM

How I think CoachMePlus can go beyond this room: I said it’s a communication tool between all the different segments in an organization and it’s really a perfect parallel if you look at teams that win the World Series, or win a division, or have a good program, they’re always looking to find a piece to help the program.

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NICK SHEDD,
STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING COACH

The U.S. Women’s National Field Hockey team brought in Nick Shedd as their strength and conditioning coach in December of 2016 after his work at both Bon Secours Sports Performance and EXOS in sports performance training. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Sports Medicine/Wellness from Averett University, Shedd earned his Master of Science Degree with a specialty in strength and conditioning from Appalachian State University.

Shedd is the team’s performance scientist, collecting data from his athletes and analyzing their key performance indicators.

CoachMePlus’s Brayton Wilson caught up with Shedd to discuss how he utilizes the data collected using CoachMePlus, and how it keeps his team in peak condition throughout the season.

Interview with Nick Shedd

WHAT TYPE OF SPORTS PERFORMANCE DATA DO YOU COLLECT?

If I had to globalize it, I would say movement literacy would be number one. Can they move? Can they get into the right positions that we need them to in order for them to play their sport? Number two would be output – looking at their lower-body power and force capabilities, their sprint speed, their aerobic and anaerobic conditioning. And then there’s readiness as well. So we’re monitoring load on the athletes in several different ways and use all of those different things to paint the picture of each athlete, each day and establish where they are at recovery wise. Are they being pushed hard enough? Do we need to pull things back? Just making sure we’re managing them effectively throughout the week.

CoachMePlus lets you easily track all of your athletes data on one platform.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR YOU TO BE ABLE TO USE THIS DATA?

Just speaking about CoachMePlus specifically, it took probably about three months for us to really start making effective and fast decisions based off of what we were able to input and then extract from the system. There is a data collection period, for example, with the wellness questionnaires, the body soreness and all of the day-to-day reporting that the athletes do. There was a data collection period where we weren’t making any decisions; we were just trying to establish what their baselines, what their norms were. As we got further into it and we were monitoring internal training loads through the system as well, we started to see trends. When our athletes start to get really sore hamstrings or those minor things that come up here and there with their bodies, and we can go back and correlate that to the data we had in the system. So I’d say it was about three to four months, and now we use it every day.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN TO PUSH YOUR ATHLETES AND HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN TO PULL BACK?

We have other systems in place. We’re monitoring G.P.S. as well, and basically that allows us through R.P.E – we get internal training load through G.P.S., we get external training load – and also the stuff we do in the weight room I can calculate a training load in there as well. Basically we look at their internal training load, what they’re actually reporting to us and we look at their external training load side-by-side inside of the CoachMePlus system. There’s literally two graphs that sit side-by-side. Those two graphs should theoretically look the same. If an athlete’s external training load, meaning the work they do on the pitch, is really high but their internal training load, the self-perceived training load, is really low, then we know we can push them harder. Conversely, if their training load on the pitch is really low and they are reporting that their training load is really high, then we know that we have to pull back a little bit. There’s also research showing that looking at acute to chronic work load ratios, basically what’s your average work load over the last 28 days versus your average work load over the last seven days. We know what ratio we want to be in. If you’re above a certain threshold, you’re at high risk for injury. If you’re below a certain threshold, you’re not gonna adapt to anything. We use that every single day as we go through the week to see where we’re at with the players, and make sure we’re pushing them just hard enough but not too much.

HOW DO YOU MANAGE ALL YOUR ATHLETES’ TRAINING THROUGH THEIR BUSY SCHEDULES?

A lot of it comes down to education, especially with this software. They have certain tasks they have to do on their phones in the mornings. Just telling them to do it without them understanding are we actually looking at the data and what’s being done with it. It can be challenging to get compliance right off the bat, but once you show them we’re actually making decisions based off of this, it’s not just me saying, ‘hey, how are you doing today?’ Once they understand that, then you start to see much better compliance. We’re basically two-a-days five days a week. They are pretty good on their own as far as doing what they need to do outside of here, but with CoachMePlus it allows them to rate their quality of sleep and things of that nature. We get a little bit of a subjective analysis. If an athlete is performing poorly on the field and we can go back and look at their wellness questionnaire over the last week and see that they’ve, for whatever reason, not recovered well for five straight days, then we know that we need to dig a little deeper and find out why. CoachMePlus gives you access to all your athletes anywhere anytime.

HOW DO YOU COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR COACHING STAFF?

Within CoachMePlus, we set up different dashboards for every coach. We have our coaching staff with the actual head coach and assistant coach, there’s a dashboard for the strength and conditioning coach, and then a dashboard for the athletic trainer. I’d say one of the biggest challenges as a coach is to give information to each different staff member in a manner that is digestible and useful to that person in a flash. We sat down as a staff and collaborated on what do the coaches, the athletic trainer want to see every morning. Then we went through and created the dashboards accordingly so all they have to do is log into the system, click on their own dashboard and they can see exactly what they need to see. For the athletes, everything is pretty much managed on my end. They don’t see a whole lot of the data. The reason for that is sometimes if you have one day of data saying that you’re not well recovered, it looks like a ‘bad data point’. We don’t necessarily want the athletes to see that and panic and think, ‘Oh man, I can’t train today,’ because that’s not exactly what it means. We’re more looking at trends over time. The athletes know what it’s for. We’ve explained it to them. They understand training load, they understand the difference between external load and internal load. We’ve had a lot of educational conversations about that.

HAVE YOU USED SPORTS SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY LIKE THIS BEFORE?

It is. I’ve been a [Microsoft] Excel monkey forever. I still use Excel, but it’s one thing to have all of the data and to have it all in nice pretty graphs and everything. Everybody understands graphs, but if it’s not all in the exact same place, then it takes time. The biggest key with technology like CoachMePlus, it allows me to do less work on the back end, give me more time back so that I can actually use the information and use it quickly. One of the strength and conditioning coaches for the Arizona Coyotes told me about your system and that’s where I first dug into it.

CoachMePlus displays all your athlete’s data with ready to analyze data images.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO A YOUNGER COACH STARTING WITH SPORTS PERFORMANCE PROGRAMS?

It’s really easy to get caught down rabbit holes when you’re doing data analysis. The biggest way that you can help yourself, especially if you are a single strength and conditioning staff member like myself or if you’re of a small staff: buy yourself time. The best way to do that is to have one system where every bit of information can go into that system, it’s easy to input the information and it’s easy to extract that information. Also, all of the data collection and analysis we do as strength and conditioning coaches pretty much doesn’t matter unless you can go to your boss or your head coach and say, ‘This is why I’m making the decisions that I’m making and here’s how I think we should manage the athletes,’ and have something digestible for them to look at. You can’t go to every head coach and just start spitting signs at him because you’re going to run into a wall really quickly. By using a system like this one, it has great visuals; it makes things easily accessible. I don’t even have to go down the hall in order for our head coach to receive the information, it eliminates emails in their inbox, all of those things help the head coach. At the end of the day as strength and conditioning professionals, our job is to be part of the support staff for the head coach and the team.

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Many coaches who run an applied sports science program focus on monitoring their players before they get hurt, not after they get hurt.  In order to avoid player fatigue and soft-tissue injuries associated with dehydration, many CoachMePlus teams closely monitor pre-workout and post-workout weight.

Weighing an entire professional hockey team multiple times per day generated a few problems in the locker room.  First, how do you get 60 athletes weighed quickly and accurately, and second, how do you get a scale that will not fall apart after repeated trips by 350 pound NFL linemen or 250 pound NHL defensemen?

THE SOLUTION

CoachMePlus and METTLER TOLEDO distributor Brady Systems teamed up to solve this problem for multiple NFL, NHL, and NCAA teams.

METTLER TOLEDO is a global leader in providing scales for weighing everything from supermarket produce to construction trucks. CoachMePlus’s Athlete Management System helps coaches manage all of their athletes’ information on a daily basis. The two companies teamed up to quickly and accurately get players’ daily weight information onto the coaches’ desks.

When the Buffalo Sabres were looking to include athletes’ weight data into their sport performance practice, they turned to a world-leader in the scale industry and an industry-leader in sport performance data delivery to help them. By working with both CoachMePlus and Brady Systems, the Buffalo Sabres are utilizing equipment with the highest degree of performance reliability and accuracy. Headquartered in Buffalo, NY, CoachMePlus works with professional and collegiate sports teams to manage their athletes’ sports performance data. By integrating with numerous wearable and measurement devices, CoachMePlus develops unique reports and dashboards for teams that allow faster, more accurate and all-encompassing data delivery; ultimately improving an athlete’s game-day readiness.

Weight is a critical component in performance monitoring. Tracking an athlete’s weight before and after training sessions helps coaches determine hydration levels. Understanding an athlete’s hydration level can help a coach in prevention of injury in athletes. One only needs to look at hamstring pulls in an injury report to understand how important this is.

CoachMePlus worked with Brady Systems, a premier METTLER TOLEDO distributor with over 50 years of experience in the scale industry, to develop an innovative interface for its sports clients. The equipment used for the solution is the METTLER TOLEDO IND560 with a PBA430 platform. The weighing equipment allows teams to capture the athlete’s weight in the software. Monitoring weight helps determine an athlete’s fluid loss triggering changes in specific strength and conditioning workout routines, custom diets and suggested recovery.

Click to learn how CoachMePlus helps you use sports science to achieve game day success.

DOUG MCKENNEY
STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING COACH

Doug McKenney, Strength & Conditioning Coach for the NHL Buffalo Sabres, has been using CoachMePlus for over three years including the integration of the METTLER TOLEDO weighing equipment. Doug provided a brief insight for us:

INTERVIEW WITH DOUG MCKENNEY, BUFFALO SABRES

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN USING COACHMEPLUS AND METTLER TOLEDO WEIGHING EQUIPMENT?

We have been working with CoachMePlus for several years now and we installed the METTLER TOLEDO scale in the summer of 2014.  The data collection of weigh-ins and weigh-outs to ascertain fluid loss is so much easier with the system.

WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF KNOWING AN ATHLETE’S WEIGHT AT SPECIFIC TIMES?

The nature of our sport creates a battle of maintaining proper fluid balance and having enough stored energy to perform optimally.  Seemingly, we are always in a state of dehydration and glycogen depletion because of our schedule.  These two issues can lead to fatigue and potential injury.  We want our players to be aware of what their optimal scale weight is before practice and games.  We have created methods for them to hydrate and replete energy stores.  The scale weight measurement is a key method for recognizing if they are safely and optimally prepared to compete.  We always have them weigh in before and following the practice or game and provide them with the needed guidelines to restore.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE BRADY SYSTEMS AND METTLER TOLEDO WEIGHING EQUIPMENT?

The simpler you can make it for the athlete the more likely you will get consistent follow-through.  We used to have to constantly ask our players if they weighed in and out and how much fluid did they lose.  We rarely have to do that anymore.  As a team, we are definitely doing a much better job rehydrating because of our approach using this system.

BEFORE THE INTEGRATION WITH COACHMEPLUS SOFTWARE, HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO USE ATHLETES’ WEIGHT DATA IN PERFORMANCE TRAINING?

As part of our development program with our players, we educate them on the importance of maintaining proper fluid balance and being hydrated so that the working muscles are completely ready to perform without risk.  The data we collect allows us to provide them with their optimal playing weight on a daily basis.  With the help of CoachMePlus we designed our hydration procedure using this model.  We have been doing it this way for several years.  The METTLER TOLEDO system has just made it much easier to collect and read the data over time.

Brady Systems continues to support and install new weighing equipment for teams in the National Football League and National Hockey League and is now shipping to the global customer base of CoachMePlus.

CoachMePlus and Brady Systems will continue to work together to supply successful athlete management solutions to the sports and fitness marketplace.

Click here to see all the features CoachMePlus’ full enterprise solution provides. Subscribe to our Applied Sports Science Weekly Digest and stay up to date on the latest in sports science.

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