Strength and conditioning coaches have an important role in the footballing world; whether sorting out recovery sessions for players after games or managing muscle fatigue throughout a busy season. Certain aspects of the game have started to evolve with the introduction of new technology and AI through Myocene.
Myocene is a Liège-based life science company who are active in both the sports and medicine industry. They specialise in creating unique and innovative devices for measuring muscle fatigue and performance.
Muscular fatigue results from a reduction in the strength and speed of muscle contractions, leading to a player becoming less efficient on the pitch and can last for several days.
The Myocene device is built around three pillars to measure muscle fatigue:
- Myo-sensor: An Ultra-high sensitivity sensor, registered design
- Myo contractor: Provides patented high-precision control of muscle contraction
- Myo-AI: Displays accurate measurements established by a proprietary algorithm and AI
After using the Myocene technology before and after a training session or a game, data will be shown on a team’s tablet or computer. With the accumulated data, it will show the quad measurements from a post-training or game condition to a rest condition.
These measurements can give strength and conditioning coaches an indication of how long an athlete should take to recover from muscle fatigue until they are fully recovered or ready to train at a certain standard. The technology also helps reduce the risk of overtraining syndrome and injury.
Myocene Sports Technology has been used by many clubs across Europe such as French sides RC Strasbourg, AS Saint Etienne and OGC Nice, as well as in Portugal with SC Braga.
Head of Performance of OGC Nice, Laurent Bessiere, discusses post-match recovery while using the technology from Myocene:
“It is the only tool which allows us to assess in the most reliable way the player’s level of fitness and recovery,” he said in a video on Myocene’s website.
“Myocene gives us a marker or an additional index for making the right decision on the player’s fitness management. It takes a couple of minutes per player, and very quickly you can measure the entire team.”
Christopher Juras, OGC Nice’s strength and conditioning coach, mentions not only how Myocene’s technology can aid in planning out training sessions, but also how accessible it can be:
“It allows us to map the player to make decisions about training and games and [helps us] adapt training loads throughout the week,” he said in a video on Myocene’s website.
“It’s a very easy-to-use tool, it takes up little space and if the team travels over several days it can even be carried on.”
With technology seeming to be the solution to improve the game as a whole, Myocene has proven it can help improve the landscape of injury prevention and recovery for both football clubs and organisations.
Strength and conditioning coaches have had to plan training and recovery sessions based on subjective perception by surveying a player’s commitment and voluntary movements.
With the use of Myocene, clubs can gain a better perspective on a player’s fitness to prepare them properly in the lead-up to a game and their recovery after. This could also potentially see a decrease in the number of injuries we see in a jam-packed season filled with games across multiple competitions.
For more information about Myocene, visit their website.
