In sport science, raw numbers alone are seldom sufficient to guide effective decisions—contextual understanding is critical to unlock their true value. Metrics such as Player Load, Concentric Impulse, and TRIMP acquire profound meaning only when viewed against an athlete’s usual performance levels or a team's collective norms . This is precisely where statistical tools like standard deviation and z-scores become indispensable. They quantify how far a specific data point devia

This article was written to address the growing need for comprehensive evaluation of external workloads and performance changes in collegiate women’s lacrosse athletes throughout a full competitive season. With evolving NCAA rules and an increase in match intensity, it has become vital for coaches and sports scientists to understand not only the total accumulation of physical loads, but also the effects these demands have on players’ speed, agility, strength, and endurance ov

Introduction This study was conducted by Jennifer B. Fields and colleagues from institutions including Springfield College, George Mason University, and others, and was published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. The researchers aimed to address the gap in understanding how various external and internal training load measures change across a collegiate soccer preseason period and how these markers relate to each other in predicting athlete readiness and pe