Forecasting the Likelihood of Injury in Performance Athletes before Physical Deterioration Using a Data-Driven Approach

Background: In order to perform consistently and at a high level, athletes must adequately recover between training sessions and competition. They must also be self-aware of lifestyle habits that may cause them to chronically under-rest and underperform. Validated research suggests that monitoring athlete self-reported wellness measures over time can uncover recovery patterns that yield greater or lesser propensity for injury and illness.

Aims: 1) Does journaling consistently improve recovery roadblocks, thereby improving recovery prognosis for injured and ill athletes (decrease in ailment duration and decrease in ailment frequency)? 2) Can reliable forecasts be created from injury and illness risks for athletes who log consistently?

Method: Two hundred and thirty national level hockey, swimming, wrestling, badminton and judo athletes were studied for one year. Athletes logged daily with an 80%+ average compliance rate. The control group included 96 national level athletes from the same sports who had <50% average compliance scores. Validated metrics such as stress, sleep, nutrition and more were analyzed, as were injuries and treatment.

Results: Relative to the control group, athletes who maintained 80%+ compliance were 18% less likely to become ill or injured, and recovered from their ailments on average 27% more quickly. Average training time missed from injury and illness was 23% less in the experimental group.

Discussion and Conclusion: Regular journaling significantly improves available training time for performance athletes by making them less likely to sustain injuries and illness, and more hardy in recovering from ailments. The exact reasons must be further examined.