Blog #5

 Another important aspect of the project is how to involve the Hawken community in the notion of student and student-athlete recovery. But in order to involve the community, it was first important to figure out where the community’s mindset and habits towards recovery are. So, Coach Lew and I decided to curate an inquiry to send out to all of the upper school students. We ended up getting one hundred and twenty-four responses, and the data we collected was compelling and helped us capture a snapshot for our student body. It definitely could use a few improvements before/if it gets sent out again but it was a good way to get a starting data set to compare any future sets too. Another feature Coach Lew wants to start incorporating, to check student-athletes recovery response, is the readiness check on teambuildr app. We have used the teambuildr app before for temperature monitoring and Hawken athletes use it for all of their strength workouts, and it would be simple to incorporate into a daily routine. Both of these tactics are forms of athlete monitoring which is a way to check on the readiness, stress, recovery, and injury risk of athletes, and it prompts important communication and conversations between coaches and athletes. It is also a great tool in preventing fatigue. Athlete monitoring does not have to be as fancy as either of these options, it can be as simple as a prepractice conversation between coaches and their athletes on how they are feeling at the moment. The true key to monitoring is athlete honesty because if an athlete lies it only hurts them and their progress.