There’s an app for that

Sometimes the best physical sensors are the riders themselves

One team that can’t claim to have had a great Tour de France is NTT Pro Cycling, who left the race empty-handed in another disappointing season. They’re currently struggling to exist after tech company NTT confirmed it wouldn’t be renewing its sponsorship in 2021.

On the positive side, the team does have one of the most progressive health and wellbeing apps on the circuit.

‘It was developed by one of our partners, Lumen Sports Technology,’ says NTT Pro sports scientist Dajo Sanders (who has since left for Team Sunweb). ‘One of the key things we look for is daily psychometric information so we can give feedback on training intensity or whether the riders should rest. The riders complete this app twice daily – morning and evening – to assess things like stress, mood, fatigue, muscle soreness and sleep quality.’

The results are formulated into a traffic light system, from green for fine health to red for danger. The rider can add comments and even rate teamwork (potentially very red, we suspect).

‘We see how this data changes over time. If the figures are higher or lower than their usual seven-day average it might be a cause for concern for the coach.’

The ubiquity of the smartphone has signalled an opportunity for Worldtour teams to link their many parts. With squads of up to 30 riders competing in up to three concurrent races in different parts of the world, plus riders training from Colombia to Cardiff, Bury to Belgium, keeping tabs on riders’ health is a tricky affair, made easier by monitoring apps such as NTT Pro’s.

Sanders says pre-season is a pretty welcome plateau, given that state of mind and body tends to be relatively stable.

It’s during the draining circus of a normal nine-month race season that red can often burn too bright.

‘You might see fatigue and soreness rise excessively after a big block of training, such as a rider might experience after TirrenoAdriatico [traditionally held in March], but with adequate recovery strategies such as sleep or active recovery rides, the numbers settle down.’

If they don’t, it might mean a change to a rider’s race programme, meetings with a sports psychologist and training adjustments.

‘It’s a very useful tool to backtrack and analyse what went wrong or look at how we could have done something differently in training,’ says Sanders. ‘It could be lowering the number of intervals or changing the intensity or timing of the session.’