European and International Open Champion judo player Euan Burton has been supported by the Scottish Institute of Sport for over six years.
Hard work and determination has seen Euan make significant improvements in his performance during this time. In addition, the support he has received from his personal coaches and sports science specialists at the Institute has also contributed to his ongoing development.
Euan's coaching team identified the need to monitor his performance more accurately, so called upon the services of the Institute experts in a bid to provide detailed monitoring of his training sessions. He began working with Dr Marek Anestik, an exercise physiologist and Dr Malcolm Fairweather, head of sports science and innovation at the Institute, to establish whether he was training and recovering at his optimum level or if there was room for improvement.
Marek and Malcolm were able to measure and evaluate Euan's training and recovery levels based on the status of his heartbeat using Heart Rate Variability technology (HRV). The HRV software tool was used to monitor the lag time between each heartbeat to decipher its regularity or irregularity. When this data was analysed the team were able to detect whether Euan was experiencing unnecessary stress on his body such as excess tiredness. It also determined whether his body had achieved enough recovery and had adapted to his training session in order to be able to train efficiently in his next session. In high performance sport adaptation to training is critical in allowing athletes to continually improve and increase their body's capability.
In order to monitor his training performance accurately, Euan wore a heart rate monitor which was linked up to the high tech HRV software package during rest and exercise. Results showed that Euan's heartbeat did not consistently represent the recovery and adaptation pattern they would expect from a high performance athlete. The experts identified that his recovery between training sessions was insufficient, so decreased the likelihood of his body adapting to his training sessions and consequently improving performance. If this had not been recognised, he could have suffered from over fatigue which may have led to greater illness or injury risk. On a more positive note Euan's training sessions were patterned to provide the greatest likliehood of return. This bespoke monitoring work has helped Euan towards his goal of Olympic qualification which he achieved in May this year.
Following the analysis experience, Euan and his coaches have adjusted his training programme accordingly and have considered an optimal match of training input and recovery patterns. Euan's new tailored programme patterns have therefore helped him to optimise his training sessions in the lead up to Beijing 2008.