#044 Monday Minutes: The Most Over-Rated Metric/KPI Collected Right Now

In this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show, we're returning to our Monday Minute theme and answering an audience submitted question regarding the most over-rated metric or KPI collected in the sport science and performance field. I reached out to my good friend, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Newman University, Stryder Blackburn, to help me set the tone for the episode.

You can find Coach Blackburn on Twitter at @Stryder9090

As a reminder, our Monday Minutes shows are a quick 10-15 minute episode where I discuss current industry trends, research reads, current events, and occasionally offer my insights into the training process that we're undertaking each week. I believe with conviction, you'll take away something interesting from this show and I hope it delivers you a little bit of value in your day.

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Key Takeaways

• The most over-rated metric is any metric you collect but never use. Session RPE that never changes practice intensity, force plate asymmetries that never change programming, and NordBord or GroinBar numbers with no intervention behind them are data warehousing, not coaching.
• Total distance covered is the clearest example from GPS. It is easy to quantify, but two athletes covering the same 2,000 meters can carry completely different internal loads depending on how much of it was high-speed running versus walking and positioning.
• Collection has become too easy: cheap accelerometers and smaller devices mean staffs now warehouse thousands of metrics, and collecting data for its own sake drives no meaningful change.
• The most important metric is the one that actually drives a decision. If a number will not change an intervention, a periodization choice, or a prescription, it is not worth collecting.

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Episode Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated. While we strive for accuracy, some words or phrases may be misheard.

[00:00:00] Sport science, strength and conditioning, high performance coaching, welcome to the DECoding Excellence Show Hey everybody, this is your host Adam Ringler and welcome to the DECoding Excellence Show Monday Minutes. It is a brief five to ten minute episode where we are catching up on everything that is happening in our industry. Things were reading, things were checking out, things that we are experimenting with, exploring, and it is meant to just be a quick little summary, little tidbits, little breadcrumbs

[00:00:57] Of things that are happening around our strength conditioning and high performance industry. Like always, if you enjoy the show, there is a couple of ways that you can support it. The very first thing I would recommend is please head over to AdamRingler.com forward slash newsletter. Pop in your email, I promise I won't spam you, and occasionally about once a month, I'll send you an email, it will be things that I'm reading almost like a monthly recap of these Monday Minute episodes. I think you'll get a lot out of it.

[00:01:29] I explained to my friends that it is essentially the birch box of newsletters. You don't know what you're going to get, but you know whatever you receive is going to be chuckful of great information. So head over to AdamRingler.com forward slash newsletter. Hey everybody, welcome to the Monday Minute, I'm your host AdamRingler. And today we're going to do something a little bit different. Every week after I make a publication, I usually get flooded with Twitter or Instagram DMs asking some very specific questions about whatever

[00:02:03] We're talking about. Most of the times they are relevant to sports science or performance sciences. And I thought rather than just discussing maybe the latest trends in our industry we take a moment to address one question that I get from the audience every single week. So what I did was I went out and asked some of my favorite people in the world to ask some of these user submitted, audience submitted questions. And I'll take the remainder of the Monday Minute's time and try to provide some answers and provide some clarity and just

[00:02:41] Flesh out some of the details for every question that I receive. So without further ado, here is my good friend coach Strider Blackburn head coach strength conditioning Newman University. Hey everybody, this is Strider Blackburn head strength conditioning coach from Newman University. I'm joining the Decoding Excellence Show today to read some audience submitted questions. Here we go. What is the most overrated metric to measure right now? Strider, thanks so much for asking this question because I could probably go on and on about what I think

[00:03:18] The most overrated metrics are to measure, right? I think what we've done over the last couple years here within the sports performance technology sector is that we've made systems that make it incredibly easy to collect data. You know, the systems that allow us to measure and quantify and put a number to a physical output has continued to grow both easier. They've gotten faster, the devices or the IMUs have gotten smaller. So it's easy, right? A accelerometers are ridiculously cheap in this day and era by nature of it. Things are easier to collect.

[00:03:58] Things are easier to measure now because of that because obviously the ease to collect things and measure things have grown. What has also grown is our ability to just data warehouse, a number of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of different metrics throughout athletics. So what I would consider the most overly rated metric to collect right now are the metrics that you don't ever intend to actually utilize or manage. So what I mean by that is just to collect data for collection purposes is a really poor way of actually driving any sort of data

[00:04:40] Driven meaningful changes from things. So if you're collecting, let's say session RPE, but you don't intend there and actually using it to modify the intensities or the periodization strategies of practice, it's a poor thing to utilize. If you are doing force analysis when you're doing force plate testing and you're measuring left, right, limb asymmetries, right? And you're not programming or making any sort of meaningful changes to the prescriptive modalities that you're assigning to an athlete, then that is a poor metric to an an over rated metric to collect.

[00:05:15] If you're doing groin bar and you're measuring adduction versus adduction ratios or you're measuring Nordboards and you're looking at hamstring strengths and imbalances. But then again, you're not doing any high speed running or you're not utilizing any type of Nordics or asymmetrical loaded Nordics or hamstring rollouts or anything like that to actually drive change in the intervention limb that you're trying to do, then that is an over rated metric to collect. Now if we're talking about GPS and we're utilizing some type of wearable technology, I've been pretty transparent with

[00:05:54] What I think the most over rated metric is and that is anything from the first one that comes to the top of my head would be total distance covered. Well that is something that's very easy to quantify. One of the biggest limitations of it is that if a five person basketball team or 11 person roster out on the pitch is even if distance is total equal across all of the players that are participating at that time, how I might produce my distance might be wildly different than you, right, or the other person. So again, also the cost of doing business, the internal loads produced

[00:06:31] Outputs, that external load that each individual athlete is doing could be wildly different. So if I'm covering 2,000 meters during a particular drill, what my internal load for those 2,000 meters actually is might be different than somebody else's or how I actually produce it. The velocities and the actual player load that I end up doing for those 2,000 meters could be different. So just looking at total distance covered is a very simplistic 30,000 foot view of looking at output, but without actually considering the internal loads or the actual speed bands and velocity bands

[00:07:11] Of what those 2,000 meters are actually made of, you know, if it's 1,500 meters at a higher zone or higher threshold or high speed running, that's going to have a much different stimulus and result on the actual physiology and the human body than somebody that maybe only ran 500 meters of high speed running and the other 1,500 meters is actually just walking positioning and sort of jockeying around on the field in a sub-threshold, sub-max sort of effort. So again, Strider, I think that question illustrates and hopefully my answer particularly illustrates that,

[00:07:49] You know, total distance covered can give us some sort of quantifiable outputs when we start to look through a roster or a team and start to quantify, you know, the work that's being done, but it's a poor quantification of the actual physical outputs, the physiology and the external load on the bodies, both an accelerated and decelerative and thresholds and speed bands that these athletes actually produce for that total distance that has actually covered. Like I said, I could go on and on about total distance, but ultimately to put a bow tie on this

[00:08:27] Entire Monday, minutes episode, the most important metric is the one that you will actually use and actually drive decision making from. So, you know, whether it is total distance covered or if it is the metrics that you data warehouse but will never intend to look at and provide any sort of actionable interventions based off, both of those are poor utilization of utilizing Accelerometry data, GPS or any type of diagnostic testing sports performance technology in the application of your physical preparation program.

[00:09:13] Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in to this Monday, minutes show. I hope you took something away from it and as always, there's a number of different ways that you can support the show, right? The first thing is I have a monthly newsletter that goes out. It is located at AdamRingler.com forward slash newsletter and like I said in the intro, it is chocked full of great articles, research papers, sort of daily notes, things I'm finding fascinating and experimenting with and being a human guinea pig with to try to change my own behaviors, my own habits, but

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