Device to check for training fatigue

phreak

Anyone used/heard of this? Looks like it uses muscular reflexes to determine your general levels of fatigue.

http://www.checkmylevel.com/

No idea if it's valid or pseudoscience. Is pretty expensive though at €200

buckles

Quick look at the site, can't see any links to anything to suggest it's scientifically valid

phreak

They sent over a document with some references in. I've uploaded it here

http://www.adigaskell.org/blog/wp-conte ... n-2013.pdf

cougie

Cant you just monitor your resting heart rate ? Cheap and easy ?

BenderRodriguez

Mmmm.

Pity no real references are provided, and the little supporting 'evidence' that is supplied is paper thin.

Also, the company says that the method looks specifically at 'fatigue in the nervous system' and is 'aimed especially for athletes engaged in sports requiring strength, explosive power, skill and coordination'. Given this, even if the method is sound (a big 'if') it could have limited relevance to the sort of fatigue arising from factors that do not relate directly to the functioning of the nervous system, to endurance rather than 'skill' focused sports, and so forth.

bahzob

As above. Not sure that, even if it worked, this device would be that useful for endurance cyclists.

matudavey

Part of a university engineering project I worked on looked at using a force plate (fancy Wii balance board) to measure the rate at which you can apply ground reaction force; eg during a jump.

The theory from the sports scientists we discussed this with was that your 'readiness to train' and fatigue could be assessed by your ability to absorb force when landing after a jump. In our (limited) testing, you tend to land with 'stiffer' legs when fatigued.

As landing is a relatively involuntary action compared to the upward phase of the jump it is also a more repeatable test.

A brief literature search did not find any related studies at the time, however it was not particularly thorough!