Firstbeat Coach Profile: John Marovich – Valparaiso University Women’s Soccer

In this series, we’ll be introducing you to some of the coaches and staff taking advantage of the Firstbeat Sports solution to monitor training and recovery. We’ll get their personal view and experiences of how they use Firstbeat in their sport.

Name: John Marovich
Nationality: American
Sport: Soccer
Role: Head Coach
Team: Valparaiso University Women’s Soccer

Why did you choose to go with Firstbeat Sports?

When I was searching for a team heart rate monitoring system, Firstbeat Sports stood out because not only did it have the real time monitoring component but it also had the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) piece built into the system. The HRV recovery monitoring was a critical aspect that I wanted to be a part of our system. The customer support received was first class which made it a very easy choice to select Firstbeat Sports to work with my soccer athletes at Valparaiso University.

How have you monitored your players training load/recovery in previous seasons?

In previous seasons we’ve had 5 heart rate monitors which needed to be download by a USB port. We split up our team into 4 or 5 fitness levels and had one athlete per group wear the HR watch during training. We would then use this information to make assumptions for the entire group on training load and training effect after the session has been completed. It wasn’t the best way we had based on our budget. We did see positive results and many athletes felt like they benefited from the information. So, it became a priority for us to find a system that did everything we needed for every athlete in real time within our budget which was bolstered by our alumni, since many have seen the importance and benefit to their performance by using HR data.

How are you planning on using the system with your athletes (remote aspects)?

The Training Effect, the Heart Rate Variability and evaluating fitness session data will be the biggest areas we plan on utilizing the capabilities of the Firstbeat Sports system.  Our strength and conditioning coach can assist and tweek players summer workouts based on recovery data and work to rest ratios. The other critical aspect utilizing the remote capabilities of Firstbeat Sports will be getting the 30-45 days of quick recovery data prior to the start of preseason camp, so that; once our fall season begins the baseline for each athlete will have already been developed while they were away from campus, giving greater meaning to the results obtained this fall.

Any other comments?

I am excited to learn the other functions and features of Firstbeat as we go through the next calendar year. This is such a great opportunity and program to help us get our athletes to attain an elite level of performance while maintaining our strength and conditioning goals. These goals focus on having every athlete healthy, fit and available for selection into the team during the most important matches of the year which is during our conference and post season competitions. Everyone I have spoken with at Firstbeat Sports have been first class, knowledgeable and willing to go out of their way to answer questions and create a better understanding of the system. It truly feels like we have a partner that shares the same passion and interest in assisting our athlete to reaching an elite level of performance as we do.

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