Mastering Data-Driven Decisions in Pro Basketball

Domenik Theodorou, performance coach at RASTA Vechta, shows how he plans the practice week, spots trends in each player’s heart rate and movement load data, and runs on-court rehab by load, for performance staff in professional basketball.

About this webinar

Domenik Theodorou is performance coach at RASTA Vechta in the German Basketball Bundesliga (BBL). He was strength and conditioning coach at BG Göttingen for six years and spent two seasons in Bamberg, where he started using heart rate monitoring. He shows his weekly planning sheet for one- to five-day preparations, the spreadsheet where he tracks every player’s practices, game-day reference values for each player, a rehab case built on movement load and what he has learned about games, individual workouts and days off. Players wear sensors in practices and workouts but not in games; game load is added from playing time. The session runs 59 minutes and was recorded on 23 October 2023.

What you will learn

• Why movement efficiency, movement load divided by training impulse (TRIMP), shows a player getting fitter when TRIMP falls and movement load stays the same
• Theodorou’s bands: below 1.5–1.6 needs work, 1.6–2 is fine, above 2 is good
• How a game day minus 4 introduction day and a game day minus 3 high day shape a four-day preparation
• Why on-court rehab is dosed in movement load, not minutes
• Why a youth player spent over 20 minutes above 90% of maximum heart rate in a game but 3–4 in a hard practice

Practical examples from the recording

1. A planning sheet the head coach can use. For each preparation length, from one to five days, Theodorou sets a target team movement load and suggested live minutes for every practice. In his preferred four-day preparation, the team plays Saturday, recovers Sunday, is off Monday, and starts Tuesday with an introduction day on game day minus 4, then a high day on minus 3. Game day minus 1 lasts 60–70 minutes at most. He doesn’t pick drills. Near the end of practice the head coach asks him where they are and whether to run another drill.

2. Reading fitness from efficiency. For one player, movement efficiency averaged 1.3 in the first week of pre-season, 2.21 in the second and later 3.13 and 2.89, while movement load stayed about the same. Theodorou reads that as improving fitness: the same work costs less internally. Entering each practice into his spreadsheet takes him 20–25 minutes. If a player who sits at 2.2–3.0 suddenly drops to 1.6, he goes and talks to him.

3. A player who didn’t recover in breaks. One player’s efficiency stayed low after five to seven weeks, and in water breaks his heart rate never dropped to the lower zones like his teammates’. Theodorou showed him his data next to a player in the same position. For two to three weeks he did 10 minutes on an air bike before team practice, a bike cool-down after, and 20–25 minute walks before bed. His efficiency rose from 1.5–1.7 to 2.1–2.6, he said he felt better on the court, and he dropped into the lower zones in breaks.

4. Rehab dosed in movement load. A player with a proximal rectus femoris strain rested two days, then lifted while staff planned the return. On court, Theodorou progressed individual sessions by movement load toward 220, that player’s value for an intense practice, moving from controlled, linear work to chaotic drills with an assistant coach. After two sessions at 220 with good feedback, the player returned to team practice with one contact half-court drill, then two, then three. His acute load was close to 1,000 when he rejoined, which Theodorou wanted.

Questions answered in the Q&A

How do you track players who don’t practice with the first team?
Every player has a monitor. Second-team coaches start and stop sessions on their own iPad, and youth coaches send box scores so Theodorou can add game minutes. Injured players’ bike and lifting sessions go in manually. In all, he tracks 15–16 players daily.

Can you spot a problem during practice?
Yes, with each player’s game-day averages and ranges in front of him. On one game day minus 1, a player was already at TRIMP 75–80 mid-practice, well above his usual. He had slept badly, skipped breakfast and felt sick, so he stopped early.

Do individual workouts count as real load?
Yes. With almost no breaks, players build TRIMP and movement load much faster than in team practice. Before approving an extra morning workout, Theodorou checks the player’s acute load against the previous seven days.

Why start the week with an introduction day?
After a day off, Theodorou sees TRIMP and time above 90% of maximum heart rate rise in the first practice, especially if it is full-court five on five. He believes capacity to handle stress drops quickly, so a lighter introduction day prepares players for the high day.

Does RPE match the heart rate data?
Mostly. In Theodorou’s experience players’ rating of perceived exertion (RPE) agrees with the heart rate data about 85% of the time.

Who this webinar is for

Performance coaches, strength and conditioning coaches and sports scientists in professional basketball, plus head coaches and physiotherapists who plan practice weeks, return players from injury and manage players moving between first and second teams.