Tracking Systems in Team Sports: Back to Basics

I'm delighted to share our new open access article on Sports Performance and Science Reports: Tracking Systems in Team Sports: Back to Basics.

In this article, we set out to outline the basic characteristics of athlete tracking systems and their data collection. Global Positioning Systems, Optical Tracking, Local Positioning Systems, and Inertial Measurement Units are each defined and compared.

Data processing settings, including filtering, thresholds, and effort detection are outlined. Finally, the importance of a systematic approach to data collection in the applied setting is discussed, along with practical considerations for pre-, in-, and post-session.

This was initially written as a prelude to our recent open access review in Sports Medicine, 'Tracking Systems in Team Sports: A Narrative Review of Applications of the Data and Sport Specific Analysis'. We hope that, consumed together, these two articles provide practical applications for repeatable data collection and impactful data analysis.

Thanks to the team at Sports Performance and Science Reports for sharing our piece. Thanks to Lorena Torres-Ronda and Emma Beanland for the collaboration!