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Adversity has separated football stars from greatness throughout the history of the sport. Even the brightest of stars, those considered unstoppable, were halted by a roadblock of some sort. Injury is widely recognised as the sport’s most rampant and formidable roadblock.
For athletes, injury means being sidelined from the sport they are passionate about, sometimes for months at a time. This has proven to have a considerable impact on their mental well-being. For the club, player injuries can lead to extreme financial and competitive consequences.
Zone7, a data-driven and AI-powered human performance company, recognises both the physical and psychological impact of injury. It is, therefore, their aim to predict and prevent injury. Zone7 utilises an AI-driven platform to leverage analytics and support coaches, medical staff, and performance teams in optimising athlete performance.
Zone7 was founded in 2017 and is based in the United States. Since its inception, the company has logged over 200 million hours of athletic action.
The purpose of Zone7
The overarching function of Zone7 is to detect injury risk, which allows professionals to advise the affected athlete. Performance and medical technologies can offer sports organisations key data sets.
However, without the capability to contextualise them, these data sets are far less valuable in consistent and reliable intervention. Zone7 is powered by data from tens of thousands of athlete injuries and therefore provides the required context.
Zone7 provides accurate injury predictions as well as real-time training suggestions. These suggestions are designed to optimise athlete workloads, recovery periods, and performance. Each of these factors is crucial in avoiding injury.
Zone7 separates itself from other data collection platforms through device agnostic AI. This feature allows an on-board device to analyse an athlete’s performance and detect otherwise invisible injury patterns. These findings, alongside mitigation strategies, are then able to be accessed via the Zone7 app. The app also features load management prescriptions and a weekly planner and periodisation simulator.
The core services offered by Zone7 have lightened the workload of professionals within sports organisations by removing the need to manually gather and analyse data. More importantly, sports organisations that utilise Zone7’s AI platform have seen improved player availability compared to prior seasons.
Benefits to Australian football clubs and organisations
Zone7 has been leveraged by many organisations across several sports. The platform is especially popular in the football world. Liverpool, Rangers, Queens Park Rangers, and Los Angeles FC are among the most notable of those advised by Zone7’s AI learning technology. As such, the program has proven to be a useful asset for elite sports teams, especially in football.
Liverpool has been utilising Zone7’s services since the 2021/22 Premier League season. Given Liverpool’s status as one of the world’s top clubs and the most recent Premier League champions, other clubs should consider their approach. This includes Australian football clubs, especially those in the A-League as they are particularly ambitious.
A prospective observational study found that from the 2012/13 to the 2017/18 A-League season, injury incidence ranged between 4.8 and 6.7 injuries per match-round. This shows the prevalence and impact of injury in the highest level of the Australian football ecosystem.
Considering the proven physical demands and extreme injury risk involved with the sport, A-League clubs could benefit massively from Zone7. These benefits extend beyond just reducing injury rates. The platform could foster long-term player development and possibly extend athletes’ careers. These advantages are invaluable for A-League clubs considering the competitive environment they operate in.
Conclusion
The A-League’s continuous push toward higher standards of performance and competitiveness requires clubs to embrace cutting-edge technology such as Zone7. This is especially the case for minimising injuries as the players are the club’s most valuable assets.
Through the use of Zone7, A-League clubs can ensure the long-term physical and mental wellbeing of their athletes and increase their chances of on-field success.
