Henry Ruggiero, RSL's director of physical performance, says the Catapult technology is mainly used to best augment performance on the pitch and to try to avoid injuries.
"We try and look at some specific variables in terms of distances covered, high-speed running distances, the amount of sprints that they’ve had, the amount of accelerations and decelerations they’ve had," he said.
Though Ruggiero said the current MLS collective bargaining agreement says the players have a choice of whether they wear their Catapult systems in games, they are required to wear them in practice to maximize the athletic gains the coaching staff looks for, without tiring the players too much for competition.
“We’re trying to just help give them (coaches) feedback on the session and the toll it took on the guys, and how we use that to keep building fitness and to keep fresh for games," he said. “If we’re doing a drill in practice, for example, the coaches may ask how long they should do it for so that we have an understanding of what kind of load we’re putting on guys, so we’re not just constantly breaking them down.”
Also, with such a large roster, and Monarchs and Academy players rotating in and out of RSL practices almost daily, the data is helpful in gaining a better understanding of how everybody worked when the staff cannot monitor every player individually throughout training.
“When you have 27 or 28 guys on a roster, it allows you to hopefully be able to manage them a little bit better because you’ve got numbers in front of you," Ruggiero said.
"What it does for us, it gives us a really good reading of who worked hard, who didn’t, and where we’re at as a team,” coach Mike Petke said.
