Return to Baseline Tests
Welcome back! We are continuing to list our 6 Key Ways Weight Room Monitoring Can Help Return Athletes to Play this week with our third installment: Returning to Baseline Tests. With a prerequisite understanding of your athletes capabilities, bringing athletes back can be made simple. Even without prior baseline tests, Velocity Based Training can help return athletes with simple jump testing, load/velocity profiling, and day to day fatigue monitoring.
RETURN TO BASELINE TESTS
If a program was using VBT prior to COVID19, and had established athlete baselines and profiles, you would be able to return them to play with confidence. A coach can look at how the athletes are performing now and compare their performance to their original baseline testing. Without an original baseline, athletes can still be tested upon their return to campus and periodically retested to monitor the trajectory of their performance. Fatigue and readiness can be tracked day to day in the weight room and enable athletes to return to form safely and efficiently.
We collected data all last year. We know exactly how our returning players were performing before they left campus. This gives us a starting point. I know how fast my players should be squatting certain weights. If they are moving less weight at the same speed or the same weight a lot slower, I know we have some work to do to get back to our baseline.
Jeremy Jacobs, Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach, LSU Football
MONITORING ATHLETE PROGRESS
The easiest way to track progress is a simple performance baseline test-retest. Using VBT, an athlete’s load/velocity profile can be tested week to week or phase to phase. Use the parameters below to get started.
If retested, the graph should shift to the right as athletes get more efficient at producing force at speed.
OTHER RELEVANT POSTS!
Check out other posts in our Return to Play series
FOLLOW US!
Keep checking back for more velocity based training content, tips, tricks, and tools. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter , Instagram and Linkedin and like us on Facebook.
