As NFL coaches and players face a dramatically shortened pre-season to ramp-up their strength and conditioning programs, one team's preparation will be gaining a competitive edge as it defends its NFC South title during the 2011 NFL season. Today, Polar USA and the Atlanta Falcons announced the Polar Team2 Pro solution has been designated the "Official Heart Rate Training System" of the Atlanta Falcons.
In using the Team2 Pro system throughout the 2011 season, the Falcons will gain unique insights into player capabilities using heart rate-based training sessions to optimize their fitness levels, prevent overtraining, and help eliminate injuries. Polar Team2 will give the Falcons coaching staff the ability to record and study the entire team's fitness data in real time by taking each individual player's age, weight, stress level, and maximum heart rate into consideration as they develop specialized training regimens. From the data retrieved from player's heart rate monitors, coaches can individually assess how much energy a player expended, how hard their body was impacted, and how much recovery time they'll need to maximize their performance on game day and throughout the season.
"Polar Team2 Pro is having a positive impact on our efforts to educate our players on workload and recovery," said Jeff Fish (pictured above), Director of Athletic Performance for the Atlanta Falcons. "With Polar's individualized, objective data, we're now able to make individual player assessments and design training regimens that align with our team, game day, and season requirements."
One of the most important aspects the Falcons have gleaned from the Polar Team2 technology is the workload and recovery time associated with every player on the team.
"We will always be an organization that will attempt to be on the front end of the learning curve when it comes to nutrition, sports science, and the athletic performance of our athletes," said Falcons General Manager Thomas Dimitroff. "Because of Polar's cutting edge technology, we are now able to closely monitor our players to ensure they perform at a very high level as well as taking the necessary steps to properly recover. The Polar Team2 Pro system is adding an entirely new dimension to designing programs on an individual and team level that we firmly believe will ultimately lead to competitive advantages for our team."
"For decades, Polar has been associated as the winner's 'edge' in preparing for a professional competition, or reaching an individual fitness goal," said Jesse Harper, Senior Director, Polar USA. "We're very excited to deliver the benefits of heart rate-based training with the Atlanta Falcons as they build on their recent success."
