Irish sports performance company Orreco, which uses blood biomarkers and machine learning algorithms to customize athlete training regimens, has signed a multiyear agreement to work with the Atlanta Hawks.

The Hawks are reportedly the fourth NBA team to work with Orreco, joining the Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks, and Los Angeles Clippers. Orreco also works with elite athletes and teams in the NFL, the NHL, and MLB, as well as English Premier League club Newcastle United FC, USA Swimming, Red Bull High Performance, and New Zealand’s women’s rugby team, the Black Ferns.

A New York Times story in January detailed Orreco’s work with the Mavericks, and that could suggest a possible framework for how the company will work with the Hawks. (The Times also reported the Knicks’ usage.) Orreco staff travel to Dallas four times a year to take blood samples, and the Mavericks’ medical team administers more regular pinprick tests. Players can decline to participate, but only one Mavericks player reportedly opted out. The Athletic reported in April that the Clippers also perform blood tests and that the Hawks had done some prior testing, with plans for this expanded arrangement in the offseason.

The results of the bloodwork are combined with a players’ total game time, sleep data, air miles, and on-court reactions (gleaned from practice wearables) to produce an individualized training program. There are recommendations on workload, nutrition, and recovery. Orreco has a working partnership with athlete management system Kinduct.

“I selected Orreco as they are world leaders in bio-analytics,” said Chelsea Lane, the Hawks’ executive director of athletic performance and sports medicine, in a statement. “They possess unrivaled expertise interpreting biomarker data and have critically peer-reviewed published science highlighting their work with elite athletes. Our goal is to help our players understand how their recovery status impacts their performance and using this data to truly individualize their training.”

SportTechie Takeaway

Blood testing represents a new and more invasive frontier in tracking player performance. Orreco notes that 16 of its staff members have Ph.D.s, and that they have combined for contributions to more than 300 peer-reviewed publications. But as two sports medicine doctors told the Times, while the field of biomarkers is promising, its applicability to sports performance is still preliminary.