Health and activity capabilities of Apple Watch are now helping the Australian Women’s Cricket Team train for the Ashes series. With players using an Apple Watch with an app developed by the Australian Institute of Sport to help optimise their training, and more.

Each individual player in the team has been wearing an Apple Watch during training and throughout the day. While doing so the watch has been able to collect and store important activity and health data which has been shared with their coach. Allowing coaches to monitor and modify the team’s workload and training schedule.

During training, Apple Watch records key metrics of each player including their heart rate. But off the field, it obtains information such as the mood and sleeping pattern of the player. This provides an insight into player fatigue and training load, thus, ensuring they don’t overtrain – reducing the likelihood of injury.

Cricket Australia’s David Bailey, performance coach went on to say:

“Apple Watch delivers highly accurate and instantaneous data, which has helped us overcome previous challenges where player data reached us too late to be leveraged. Now we can analyse player data in real time and put interventions in place to manage player fatigue and mitigate the risk of injury,”

He also went on to say since the team has worn Apple Watch and shared activity, they have seen players become more accountable and engaged in their training. This is because they are more motivated by the data and have more fun along the way.

Powerful Monitoring App

Apple Watch is able to track health and activity data of anyone who chooses to wear one throughout their day. However, players have been able to benefit from an app developed by the Australian Institute of Sport.

AIS was able to utilise the powerful sensors within Apple Watch to develop an app. One which gave them the opportunity to create something ‘game changing’. The app, developed for professional teams, is capable of measuring training load and player fatigue. This ensures the players do not overtrain which run the risk of injury.

Applied technology and innovation project manager of the Australian Institute of Sport, Ian Morrow has said: “We also knew we could get performance benefits by having athletes obsessed with their data, and Apple Watch has helped us do this”. While Meg Lanning, Australian captain has said: “It’s brilliant.”. With Apple Watch enabling everyone in the squad to communicate better. And to take ownership of their own training preparation.

Ashes Series

The 2019 Ashes series in the UK begins on the 1st of August and finishes up on September 16th, 2019. Streaming service Kayo Sports, which is available on a number of Apple platforms will be streaming the event in Australia. Meanwhile, you can learn more on the Apple Watch, or make a purchase from Apple’s online store.