24 Apr 2012
?The Aspire Academy 1996 born team’s recent success at the MIC Cup in Spain was influenced by the high quality work being done by the Academy’s sports science department and their use of GPS technology.
Aspire made the semi-finals of the tournament and along the way defeated Brazil 3-2.
During the tournament Aspire physiologists collected and analysed thousands of pieces of information from their players, detailing each players contribution, work-rate during each game and finer details such as speed, acceleration, deceleration, distance covered and heart rate.
The detailed information provided through the GPS helps to reduce injuries, develop game and position-specific training plans, and boost squad fitness.
For the past four years, Aspire has been using the technology across its football teams which has resulted in several improvements.
“The MIC Cup was an intense tournament with seven matches in five days however the technology showed that the players performed at the same high level in the last game as they did in the first,” said Aspire Director of Sports Science Dr. Dennis Hatcher.
“This demonstrates that the planning and fitness work being done by the sports science department and the coaches was successful.”
In addition the low injury rate from the tournament showed a high level of utilisation of the information between the coaches and the sports science department.