AMI Sports - Athlete Monitoring Intelligence
AMI Sports was conceptualised and evolved from Dr Ben Langdown’s research into athlete monitoring in golf. Research he completed with England Golf on their performance pathway started the process of understanding young golfers’ practice and tournament volumes. By collecting over 2 million units of data he was able to assess where the risks of injury were at their highest, and whether practice volumes dictated changes in performance.
Dr Ben Langdown, a Lecturer in Sports Coaching at The Open University has been working and researching in golf for over 20 years. He has presented at many international conferences including, 4 World Golf Fitness Summits, The World Scientific Congress of Golf, and delivered keynote workshops to The PGAs of GB&I, Czech Republic, Spain, and coaches working with England Golf etc. He has also worked with many elite professional and amateur golfers on their strength and conditioning including, European Tour, Ladies European Tour, Senior Tour, Challenge Tour, Euro Pro, LET Access Series, and England Golf performance pathway golfers.
Speaking about the development of AMI Sports: Golf app, Ben stated:
“The idea was really inspired by some research I have conducted through my role as the England Golf – West Midlands strength and conditioning coach for the under 18’s squads.
Within that role we were starting to look at how the practice and tournament volumes impacted young golfers. We actually had no idea precisely how many minutes they were spending on the putting green, alongside how many balls they were hitting in practice or in tournaments. Quite simply, this data just didn’t exist because golfers aren’t tracking it.
We therefore wanted to try and measure what was going on from a volume perspective to then understand how this influences performance and whether this has any impact on long term injury risk.
Initially we were using an excel spreadsheet to collect this data, but as you can imagine asking teenagers to keep accurate records using a spreadsheet was quite a challenge. Also, it was difficult for them to record their data while practicing, so we were relying on them having to remember and record their data back at home, then send it over to us afterwards.
I knew we needed another solution to overcome the problem and make the data more reliable, valid and also make the whole process more time efficient and valuable for the golfers.
Building a mobile application made a lot of sense. We know golfers have their mobiles on hand while practicing or playing. AMI Sports: Golf app can be there on the device, ready and waiting for them to immediately record their data and to help support coaches or themselves to make decisions about their schedule, practice habits, strength and conditioning priorities while monitoring their daily wellness.”
Ben has worked with consultant Tim Roberts of Scientific Athlete, to develop AMI Sports: Golf. Tim has a wealth of experience in athlete monitoring having worked for the Gatorade Sports Science Institute and now leading the scientific research department for Therabody. Together they have designed the app to allow golfers to focus their attention towards performance, training and wellness optimization in a sport where little monitoring has previously taken place.
AMI Sports: Golf – Built by sports scientists, controlled by you: Performance, training, and wellness optimization.
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