The Indian Cricket Team has landed on the Australian shores at Perth and have begun their practice for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. While training, most of us would have probably noticed a couple of players from the Indian Cricket Team wearing a vest and would have raised questions on what the vest is all about. Well, the vest is completely backed by sports science and is changing the way the Indian Cricket Team trains.
The Role Of The Scientific Vest In Sports Technology
At first glance, it might appear to be a sports bra that has crossed the gender divide, worn by both male and female athletes. But in reality, it is a sports wearable technology—a compression vest designed with a small device no bigger than the palm of your hand, nestled in a pouch between the shoulder blades. This device, though barely noticeable to those who wear it, has revolutionised how athletes prepare for their sport, especially in team-based games.
This is the world of the GPS tracker—a piece of sports technology that has unified the diverse realm of professional sports and transformed how athletes train, analyse and perform. Today, nearly every elite athlete in team sports around the globe relies on this innovation.
Evolution Of The Scientific Vest
When sports science first introduced the GPS tracker into athletic performance, its primary function was simple: measure the distance an athlete covered during a game. But sports technology has come a long way since then. Modern devices, now equipped with accelerometers, track not just the distance but the frequency and intensity of an athlete’s accelerations and decelerations. Gyroscopes and magnetometers work in tandem to map body movements in 3D, monitor directional changes and even capture an athlete’s exact position on the field. Additionally, heart rate monitors provide crucial data that, when processed by sophisticated algorithms, help measure training intensity and assess fatigue levels.
How Does The Scientific Vest Enhance Performance?
The beauty of this sports wearable technology lies in how the data collected is utilised. All the metrics from an athlete’s movements are sent to a central database where analysts can track progress in real time. This allows for immediate performance feedback, as well as long-term comparisons of training data over weeks and months. The ability to observe fatigue levels or detect early signs of injury offers coaches and trainers valuable insights to optimise an athlete’s conditioning and prevent overexertion.
The Birth Of The Scientific Vest
The journey of the scientific vest began in 2000 with a collaboration between the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and the Cooperative Research Centres, which aimed to develop sports technology for use in real-world settings. The initial prototypes were large and impractical, so they were initially used on rowing boats to measure roll, pitch and yaw. It wasn’t until 2002 that the devices became small enough to be taped to an athlete’s body. Early models were quite basic, measuring little more than the distance covered during a training session. However, over the next few years, the device was further refined and by 2006, the technology was commercialised and ready for use in professional sports.
Widespread Use Of Scientific Vest In Contemporary Sports
Today, sports wearable technology by Catapult Sports is a staple in nearly every elite sports team across 39 different sports, including popular teams in India’s football and hockey leagues. The company has become a leader in sports science, providing data-driven insights that help coaches and athletes optimise their training routines, monitor recovery and even prevent injuries.
Once players began to wear it for matches, coaches had another rich vein of data to mine from; now they could do with great precision exactly what they’ve always wanted to do: mimic the match environment during training.
You Are Being Tracked
The GPS vest now dictates every aspect of an athlete’s life across most team sports, but it was first wholeheartedly embraced by football clubs. Initially, players wore it only for training. By 2015, teams began to wear them under their jerseys during official matches. At the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, teams were allowed to transmit the data real-time during matches and analysts could share the player information with the coaches. Like F1 cars, footballers now cannot take a step on the pitch without telemetry shadowing them.
Thanks to sports technology and the scientific vest, the landscape of sports science has dramatically changed. What was once a simple tool for measuring distance has evolved into a comprehensive system that tracks the minutiae of athletic performance. As teams continue to embrace sports wearable technology, the future of training looks increasingly data-driven, personalised and precise.
The Sportz Planet Desk,
Atharva Shetye
