Off-Season Performance Testing - What and Why?

Performance testing is critical to the success of all our athletes. It gives us a baseline measurement as the starting point to work on. Here we can see where an athlete is both weak and strong. The programme can be tailored from the results and ensure we have a well-rounded injury resistant athlete. When we are at a point of retesting the results can show us if the practical application of our training has made any direct impact, and to what extent. If results are positive we know that we are moving in the correct direction but if results are neutral or even negative then there are many different indirect factors that we must evaluate. Such factors as sleep, stress, consistency, training load outside of our sessions can all be factors influencing adaptation.  On top of this, testing and the results from testing give individuals great motivation to improve themselves and work hard.