Beyond the Basics: 5 Secret Use Cases for Load Monitoring in Elite Sports

Domenik Theodorou, performance coach at RASTA Vechta, shows how he uses heart rate and movement load data beyond team practice: national team windows, top-up sessions, return after illness, off-season and private workouts, for performance staff in professional basketball.

About this webinar

Domenik Theodorou is in his fourth season as performance coach at RASTA Vechta in European professional basketball and has used heart rate monitoring in practice since 2021. He shows practice reports, a 3×3 national team session, a player’s numbers before and after an 11-day illness, off-season against in-season load, and three physiological player profiles built from training impulse (TRIMP), movement load and heart rate recovery. Before sending a sensor with a player to a national team window, he asked the federation for permission, and it agreed. The Q&A covers what movement load measures, how to find maximum heart rate and whether off-season work should match in-season demands. The session runs 58 minutes and was recorded on 11 June 2025.

What you will learn

• How a 3×3 national team practice reached TRIMP 228 and 37 minutes above 90% of maximum heart rate, against a season-high of 14 minutes in team practice
• A top-up rule: the movement load gap to the team average plus about 20
• Why a player’s estimated maximum of 196 bpm had to come down to 176
• Theodorou’s rule of thumb that a player sick for seven days needs about seven days of practice to look normal again
• Three player profiles told apart by heart rate recovery

Practical examples from the recording

1. A national team practice at double the load. After the season, one player joined the DBB 3×3 national team and took a sensor with him. His first session lasted 1 hour 46 minutes, against team practices of 60–90 minutes, with TRIMP 228, movement load 259 and 37 minutes above 90% of maximum heart rate. His season average on game day minus 4 was TRIMP 78 and movement load 142, and his most minutes above 90% in any team practice was 14. He rated the session 12 out of 10, against his usual 7 or 8. Theodorou told him to keep the next day light.

2. Topping up low-minute players. During live monitoring Theodorou removes outliers from the team average. In one practice the group averaged TRIMP 93 and movement load 190, while one low-minute player had 43 and 111: a movement load gap of 80. He adds about 20, so the player does an individual workout of around 100 movement load after practice. He tops up movement load rather than TRIMP, because a one-player workout has no breaks and TRIMP comes anyway.

3. Correcting maximum heart rate. A new player said his previous club told him he never worked hard enough, because he never spent time above 90% of maximum. His age-based maximum was 196 bpm, but the highest value Theodorou saw in two weeks of demanding pre-season practices was 176. He lowered it. He now checks every player’s peak heart rate each week in pre-season and ignores single outliers.

4. Coming back after an 11-day illness. One player missed 11 days with a high fever. In eight practices before, he averaged TRIMP 111, movement load 208, a peak excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) of 46 and heart rate recovery of 53. In four practices over six days after, his EPOC peak averaged 75 and heart rate recovery 45. Theodorou’s rule of thumb: a player sick for seven days needs about seven days of practice before his numbers look like before.

5. Three player profiles. Profile one: TRIMP 110, movement load 151, movement efficiency (movement load divided by TRIMP) 1.37, almost 6 minutes above 90% and heart rate recovery of only 32 beats in 30 seconds. Profile two looks similar, with TRIMP 136 and almost 7 minutes above 90%, but recovers 69 beats, so Theodorou tells the head coach the player is ready again after a short break. Profile three, the one he wants: TRIMP 102, movement load 270 and no time above 90%.

Questions answered in the Q&A

Does a higher movement load mean a player worked at higher intensity?
Not necessarily. Movement load sums accelerations in three axes, so a long, slow session can also build it up. Theodorou compares each player with his own history, not with teammates, because players accumulate movement load at different rates.

How do you find maximum heart rate in pre-season?
He used the 30-15 Intermittent Fitness Test, but several players stopped before reaching their limit. He now checks peak heart rates in the weekly report through pre-season and sets the profile from realistic values, not from single outliers.

Should off-season training match in-season load?
Theodorou doesn’t think it needs to. Even an ideal off-season week, with four lifting sessions and five individual basketball workouts, stays far below the in-season acute load of 700–1,000. Matching it would mean two sessions a day.

Should players wear monitors in private workouts?
Yes. One player came in for night shooting about five days a week, sometimes adding tempo runs, and some nights added up to almost a game day minus 1 practice. Theodorou now asks players to wear the sensor whenever they step on the court.

Who this webinar is for

Performance coaches, strength and conditioning coaches and sports scientists in professional basketball, plus head coaches and return-to-play staff managing low-minute players, national team windows, illness and off-season work alongside team practice.