By Isaac Donsky & Robert Sobus
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers
The Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the lives of many college athletes, personal trainers and coaches. In the before times, athletes worked out in gyms with trainers. Coaches could monitor training in person. But starting in March 2020, athletes had to limit contact in fear of spreading the virus. This resulted in canceled practices, games and workout facilities closing their doors.
Millions of college athletes had to grasp this new normal. Towson University winter and spring athletes learned on March 12, 2020 that the remainder of their seasons were cancelled. On July 17, 2020, fall athletes learned that their seasons would not happen.
Most college athletes live in dorms or apartments and do not have the access to the equipment they would use on campus. So they no longer had access to the tailored exercise routines and nutrition regimens they were used to in the athletics facilities.
No sports and no in-person interaction with trainers and coaches left many athletes wondering how they could maximize their training. Given that the usual practices and games were on hold, tracking athletes’ workout performance at home was the next best thing. Coaches and trainers turned to wearable technology to make that happen. Finding a balance between student safety while providing workout routines became difficult.
The consumption of wearable technology during the pandemic rose substantially. Research shows that the wearable technology market was valued at $32.6 billion in 2019 and is projected to expand significantly in the coming years. College athletes are among the drivers of this growth — though only some institutions have invested in this technology.
“The professional-level sports obviously will be getting whatever the newest, best stuff is,” said Liam Outten, a former club soccer player at Towson. “Beyond that, I don’t really see a world where people playing like a casual club sport or youth sports will ever get their fair share of this technology.”
The Solution
So what can be done to ensure that college athletes are keeping in shape during this most difficult time? One solution is TeamBuildr, an app that coaches and trainers use to monitor athlete performance on their teams. TeamBuildr has become very popular due to the pandemic, and is currently used by several professional sports teams, such as the Denver Broncos of the NFL, and the Texas Rangers of MLB. The app is also used by college athletic programs such as the University of Tennessee and Ohio State University.
“TeamBuildr has been the one big solution,” said Aaron Droege, assistant athletic director for sports performance at Towson. “It has an internal messaging system so we can keep up with our athletes and make sure they are doing their exercises.”
Towson had initially used Microsoft Excel to track their athletes but had begun transitioning to TeamBuildr at the start of 2020. The pandemic ended up accelerating TeamBuildr’s incorporation into Towson’s athletic staff, with around eight different teams using it by year’s end. Among them are the teams Droege oversees; men’s lacrosse and women’s soccer.
TeamBuildr works by providing a space for coaches and athletic trainers to organize data they’ve collected from athletes. Users can plan out workouts using separate calendars that are tailored specifically for individual athletes and record the data they receive afterwards. Users can set goals and specific exercises for individual athletes, and even fundraise for their programs.
By using TeamBuildr’s features, Droege and other members of Towson’s athletic staff can handily organize data collected from athletes. They also use the app to plan workouts and distribute those workouts to athletes in a safe manner that protects both parties from COVID-19. IPads are set up in Towson’s weight rooms with TeamBuildr downloaded. A set of workouts for each individual athlete is then sent to each iPad. The athletes then workout on their own with TeamBuildr guiding them through each exercise.
“So what it means is that kids we previously had to herd like we were sheep-dogs are now just clicking through the exercises and working at their own pace,” Droege said. “It’s made things much easier to manage.”
TeamBuildr is just one of multiple solutions that athletic programs have introduced to try and keep their athletes in shape. In July 2020, the University of Tennessee college athletes were given wearable technology from innovators at WHOOP (a wearable technology company). The wearable device is a watch that syncs data to an accompanying app. This allows coaches and trainers to see heart-rate monitoring, recovery, sleep patterns and even indicators if an athlete is or may become sick.
Insights
According to Droege, TeamBuildr has greatly improved the level of communication between athletes and their support staff. Athletes and coaches have to make sure that they are on the same page when it comes to scheduling workouts and providing the necessary data.
“First and foremost, you need to have true and authentic trust with your students,” Droege said. “But you also need an effective line of communication with your coaches. If not, you’re just spinning your tires and collecting all of this data without any use for it.”
When that line of communication is built properly, TeamBuildr can provide relief for athletes who may be concerned that they aren’t getting enough training. Droege noted that when Towson first cancelled spring sports, TeamBuildr allowed the athletic staff to instantly plan their next steps.
“We sent out the first set of workouts to our athletes the second day of quarantine,” Droege said. “It took away the worry that so many kids had, and helped us to establish that communication right out of the gate. At that point, any opportunity we could take to give them some mental relief was huge.”
TeamBuildr has also made communication between members of the athletic staff at Towson much easier. If a player gets injured, staff members can now instantly communicate the situation, allowing for treatment to be doled out effectively. Coaches also have a greater level of communication with their team, as they are able to send out workouts specific to each skill position.
Evidence of Effectiveness
According to Droege, TeamBuildr has been extremely helpful for Towson. The days of making Excel sheets seems like forever ago. Now, TeamBuildr has streamlined the process to a point where everything is done in an instant.
“It makes it so much easier access wise,” Droege said. “You can create calendars for each team, with sub-calendars for different positions or injured players. It makes keeping track of players’ schedules so much easier.”
Droege said that the biggest impact TeamBuildr has made, other than improving communication, is that it has helped his staff relate more with incoming freshmen classes. According to Droege, each new class is more tech savvy then the last, which can lead to a bit of a technology gap between the generations.
“I mean, I’m not much older than these kids,” Droege said. “But I consider myself more of a pen and paper guy. It’s nice to see the current generation of kids get acquainted with TeamBuildr so easily.”
Overall, Droege has noticed that the feedback he’s gotten from TeamBuildr has helped him to focus on data he previously hadn’t noticed as much. And this has led to better training regiments and workout plans for his athletes.
“When you’re training in the weight room, we’re seeing more feedback on the exercises that our athletes are choosing to do,” Droege said. “We can now see how much force an athlete is using during a lift session and apply that to an upcoming season.”
Limitations
The pandemic has forced coaches and college athletes to think outside the box. Many companies like Apple and Samsung have made wearable technologies like that collect data like TeamBuildr. People have worn both an Apple and Samsung watch and have been given separate readings on important vital signs like their heart rate.
The use of software like TeamBuildr has helped improve the way athletes are monitored. While some professional and collegiate teams use TeamBuildr, it is not overly popular. Like most things, it has its own set of flaws.
Some coaches may not be tech-savvy and become intimidated by the use of new technology.
The software can become costly, too. TeamBuildr has four different monthly or annual plans. Silver, which is for single teams and personal trainers, costs $500 per year. Gold, for small schools and facilities, costs $800 per year. A platinum membership, for large schools, colleges and facilities, costs $1,200 per year. Platinum pro, the most expensive of the plans at $1,800 per year, is for pro teams and large organizations.
Not only is cost an issue, but validity of results is another issue seen by athletic staff.
Droege is not alone with his concerns about information usage. Some athletes have raised concerns about whether the information being gathered is susceptible to hacking.
While these issues are notable, they haven’t done much to stop Towson and other college athletic programs from using performance tracking apps to keep their athletes in shape during the pandemic.