Athlete Performance Management vs Athlete Management

There have been numerous attempts to automate the management of all the information related to the training and management of an athlete. These have been referred to as "athlete management systems’’ and typically they have attempted to manage every scrap of information regarding the athlete from performance tests, to nutrition, game results and even confidential medical data.

The trouble with this approach is that the end product is invariably big, complex and expensive as it tries to be everything to everyone. These systems usually fail because it is impossible to get the buy-in from all the different disciplines working with the athlete. Acceptance of these systems is usually hampered by competition from existing systems that specialise in a particular area, such as medical records management systems or systems developed in house by staff. This means that the new system will often not meet all the requirements of the staff and ends up creating more work instead of less.

Athlete Performance Management (APM) is a new light weight coach-centred approach that focuses primarily on information that is useful for the coach, and for support staff who deal with the coach, in preparing the athlete for optimum performance. The coach is at the coal face in dealing with the athlete from a performance perspective. He does not need the complete medical history of an athlete, he just needs recommendations from doctors and physios on how to manage a current injury. He needs to know if an athlete is eating well - not what he has eaten over the last week. The coach needs to know if the athlete is tired or stressed, but does not need a full psychiatric report.

APM is a system for managing and sharing useful information between the coach, athlete and support disciplines so that the athlete can produce the best possible performance time after time. A good APM system seamlessly works across disciplines and enhances the value of existing specialised systems without adding complexity.

Kinetic Athlete is state of the art APM that will immediately improve the quality of information available to the coach and support staff in their day to day preparation of athletes.