Firstbeat Hosts Europe’s Largest Internal Load Summit for S&C Coaches

Firstbeat Sports recently hosted its largest European summit dedicated to internal load, bringing together leading strength and conditioning coaches and performance staff from across professional football.

Held at the iconic Olympiastadion in Berlin, home to Hertha BSC, attendees were welcomed to the event by Henrik Kuchno, Head of Athletics at Hertha BSC.  50 performance professionals representing 10 nationalities attended the summit. Featuring six expert speakers from top European football clubs, the summit delivered a full day of practical insights on physiology and the application of internal load monitoring in elite team sport environments.

Event Highlights

• Live demonstration of Firstbeat’s Submaximal Testing with real-time data visualization
• Practical case studies from top European clubs
• Collaborative discussions on applying internal load data in daily practice

How to Make Submaximal Fitness Testing Easy, Fast, and Reliable – Practical Application

Joel Wenning’s real-time demonstration highlighted how submaximal fitness testing (SMFT) provides a simple, efficient, and reliable way to monitor athlete fitness throughout the season.

Using Firstbeat’s sub-maximal fitness testing feature, coaches can track meaningful changes in fitness over time. Joel emphasized that SMFT is easy to integrate into regular sessions, often as part of a warm-up, and applicable across all team sports and levels.

With the introduction of SMFT Live View in the Firstbeat Sports Coach App, this process becomes even more powerful, enabling coaches to monitor heart rate in real time and access results instantly, eliminating manual work and allowing for faster, more confident decision-making.

Speaker Highlights

Internal Load in Elite Football: From Monitoring to Decision-Making

Rocco Perotta – Empoli FC

Rocco Perotta presented a highly practical, decision-driven approach to managing player load in elite football. His framework is built around three key pillars: player status, load trends, and contextual factors.

At Empoli FC, this approach is closely aligned with the club’s philosophy of developing young players from academy to first team, ensuring that long-term athlete development remains central to the performance staff’s overall strategy.

By combining physiological metrics such as TRIMP with perceived effort (RPE), Empoli translates complex data into clear, actionable strategies, whether that’s recovery, load adjustment, or top-up training. Perotta emphasized that data alone is not enough; psychological state, match context, and individual differences must also be considered. His key message: keep it simple, communicate clearly, and make decisions collaboratively.

Building Performance Processes from the Fitness Test Up

Tom Joel – Leicester City FC

Drawing on over 15 years of experience at Leicester City, Tom Joel shared insights into building robust performance processes across training, matches, and rehabilitation.

A central theme was the importance of accurate maximal fitness testing as the foundation for internal load monitoring. Without a true maximum heart rate for each player, metrics such as training zones, TRIMP, and training effects lose validity.

Joel also introduced Leicester’s bespoke “SDS” fitness test, designed to ensure reliability, consistency, and meaningful data collection. His session reinforced how well-structured data processes can transform raw data into practical decision-making tools for coaches and staff.

Periodisation & Conditioning: Inside a Typical Training Week at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim

Philipp Lussi – TSG 1899 Hoffenheim

One Session, Multiple Realities: Variability in Training Stimulus

Pierre Gillo – Aalborg BK

Pierre Gillo explored one of the key challenges in team sports: how the same training session can produce vastly different internal load responses between players.

His presentation highlighted the importance of understanding internal load variability and moving beyond simple metrics. Effective load management, he argued, requires integrating data, context, and long-term monitoring to truly connect training with performance adaptation.

How to Prepare to Perform at SC Braga First Team

Joao Alves – SC Braga

Short-Haul Air Travel as a Physiological Stressor

Dimitris Stergiopoulos – AEK Athens FC

Dimitris Stergiopoulos examined the often-overlooked impact of air travel on player physiology and performance.

With elite footballers frequently traveling due to congested schedules, managing the balance between load and recovery becomes even more critical. His research demonstrated how travel can negatively affect sleep, heart rate variability, and overall performance.

Practically, he emphasized the importance of:

• Monitoring sleep and HRV around travel
• Adjusting training loads during travel weeks
• Implementing targeted recovery strategies
• Individualizing interventions based on player responses

The Firstbeat Football Conditioning & Performance Summit highlighted the growing importance of applying physiological data in elite sport. Across all presentations, a consistent message emerged: internal load is most powerful when it is contextualized, understanding how internal and external load interact, and using that connection to guide daily coaching decisions. See the full agenda, list of speakers, and presentation topics here.

Register your interest for the next Firstbeat summit using the form below and be the first to hear when details are announced!