Welcome 2025! A huge year for major sporting events including the Rugby Six Nations, Women’s Rugby World Cup, Women’s Euro Football Championships, World Cycling Championships and World Athletic Championships - to name a few!
Super humans will be on the global stage again, competing at the highest physical level for the honour of securing that winning trophy and being honoured as a leader in their sport.
But how do they do it? What are the support systems that drive them forward? What kind of tech innovation, AI, physical and mental props or biomechanical insights are helping humans create even better wins and new world records?
As we reflected on the Olympics last year, we can glimpse into the insights from professional sports people this year. Here we will explore their training playbooks and regimes, whilst taking a look at the futuristic tech support systems, helping them achieve bigger, better goals and world records.
Elite athletes are typically made from a combination of natural talent, mental resilience and rigorous training but it's the new self monitoring supportive systems and knowledge environments that are enabling performances to reach even greater heights.
Wearable devices are now revolutionizing professional sports. By providing detailed, real-time insights into an athlete's body, performance, and recovery, we are enabling coaches, sports scientists, and athletes themselves to optimize training, prevent injury, and enhance performance.
Ripple sits within this exciting and fast advancing monitoring technology, part of an essential elite sport support environment.
So how does it all work and can self monitoring benefit our own health day to day? 100% Yes! Here’s 5 simple ways:
1. Get to know your own body better!
World class athletes are highly knowledgeable about their own bodies. It’s something we should all become more familiar with.
Professional athletes, aided by their support teams, track their individual body health and performance, using a combination of advanced technology, proven scientific methods and personalised data analysis. Whether you’re an elite athlete or a regular human being, continuous real-time data shows how your body uses and responds to different things from food and drink to exercise and sleep.
2. Nutrition and diet
Just like elite athletes, what we consume is critically important as it directly influences our daily energy levels and overall health.
Knowing how our bodies react to what we eat and drink, by incorporating specific nutrition strategies and monitoring glucose levels, we can boost our energy, improve health, and enhance quality and longevity of life.
According to Utah University “eating like an Olympian means more than just consuming the right number of calories”. Understanding what, when, and how to eat for the demands of your particular lifestyle can give your body the fuel it needs to perform at its best.
Did you know? Contrary to popular belief, breakfast is not essential. But a nutritious breakfast can kickstart your metabolism and provide the energy needed to stay focused and active.
Here’s some essentials to enrich your personal nutrition:
- Protein-Packed: Include sources of protein like eggs, plain yoghurt, or a protein smoothie. Protein helps stabilise blood sugar levels and keeps you full for longer.
- Whole Grains: Opt for whole grains such as oatmeal, whole-grain bread, seeds or quinoa. They provide sustained energy and essential nutrients.
- Fruits and Vegetables: Add fresh fruits and vegetables for vitamins, minerals, and fibre. Berries, spinach and tomatoes are excellent choices.
- Eat Regularly Timed Balanced Meals. Eating a few regularly timed meals is important. Your body's natural rhythms become attuned to regular meal times. Eating balanced meals is key to maintaining energy and avoiding snacking will prevent the afternoon slump. Monitoring your glucose levels can help you understand how your body regulates energy release from stored glucose in the form of glycogen, and you will be able to see how different foods affect this process in your body.
- Lean Proteins: Include lean meats, fish, tofu, beans, and legumes in your meals. Protein supports muscle repair and growth and helps maintain energy levels.
- Healthy Fats: Incorporate healthy fats like avocados, nuts, seeds, and olive oil. These fats support brain function and provide long-lasting energy.
- Colourful Vegetables: Fill half your plate with a variety of colourful vegetables to get a range of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
- Complex Carbohydrates: Choose complex carbs like brown rice, sweet potatoes, and whole-grain pasta. They digest slowly and provide steady energy.
- Monitor Glucose Levels: As you age, maintaining stable blood sugar levels becomes increasingly important for overall health and longevity.
3. Hydration
Drinking plenty of water is essential to a healthy lifestyle. The hot, dry conditions of most Summer based sports venues mean that plentiful hydration is key for sporting performance. Some athletes will supplement water with blended electrolytes, which our bodies lose due to excessive sweating.
Drinking water is crucial for nearly every bodily function, including regulating our body temperature, maintaining electrolyte balance, and supporting the transportation of nutrients.
Water supports all of our vital organs including:
- Kidneys: Water helps our kidneys filter waste from blood and excrete it through urine. Proper hydration reduces the risk of kidney stones and urinary tract infections.
- Heart: Staying hydrated supports heart health by helping to maintain proper blood volume and circulation, reducing the strain on the heart.
- Digestion & appetite: Water aids digestion by helping dissolve nutrients and facilitating the movement of food through the intestines, preventing constipation. Drinking water before meals can help control appetite by making you feel fuller, potentially aiding in weight management. Staying hydrated also supports metabolic processes, which can help with calorie burning and overall energy expenditure.
Drinking water also aids in nutrient absorption and the transport of nutrients through our body. Water is a vital component of blood, which transports oxygen and nutrients to cells throughout the body. Water helps break down food in the stomach and aids in the absorption of essential vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.
And vital for anyone - professional athlete or otherwise, water regulates our body temperature through sweating and temperature balance. When your body heats up, water helps cool it down through sweat, which evaporates from your skin and dissipates heat. Proper hydration ensures that your body can effectively regulate its temperature, preventing heat-related illnesses like heatstroke.
4. Exercise and endurance
In recent times, the game of professional rugby has considerably advanced its knowledge about player performance.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the most impactful uses of technology in professional rugby are wearables, embedded with an ability to monitor player health and performance in real time.
In fact, customised wearables can track the force of rugby impacts during tackles, providing critical data on the physical stress players endure.
Whether rugby is your sport or not, regular physical exercise is critical to all of us - whatever level we are. And when it comes to pushing our personal limits and reaching new heights in fitness, understanding and leveraging lactate can make all the difference.
Often misunderstood and wrongly blamed for post-exercise soreness, lactate plays a crucial role in enhancing your performance and endurance.
Lactate, also known as lactic acid, is a byproduct produced by our muscles during intense exercise. When we engage in high-intensity workouts, muscles require more energy than oxygen can provide, leading to the anaerobic breakdown of glucose. This process produces lactate. Lactate also plays a vital role in how our bodies function for all levels of activity, not just the highest intensity.
Ripple tracks lactate levels in real-time, providing us with valuable insights into our training. By monitoring lactate levels, we can adjust our intensity to ensure we are training in the optimal range for improving your lactate threshold. This data-driven approach allows us to tailor workouts for maximum effectiveness.
5. Sleep
The often overlooked element to peak physical performance is quality sleep. Certainly, much of the scientific research points at how poor sleep and sleep deprivation can have a harmful effect on athletic performance.
Many elite athletes work sleep into their training schedules as an essential part of their preparation for competitions.
Real time data from Ripple enables us to balance nutritional intake with activity, helping optimise sleep quality. By fueling your body with the right nutrients, you can promote a smoother transition into sleep and reduce the likelihood of waking up during the night due to hunger or fluctuations in blood sugar.
Engaging in regular physical activity, which produces lactate, helps regulate stress hormones like cortisol, promoting a more relaxed state conducive to sleep. While you might not associate lactate with sleep, its effects on your body's stress response can have a significant impact on your ability to fall and stay asleep.
Ripple will record lactate levels in real-time allowing you to incorporate exercise into your daily routine, balanced with the right nutrition and hydration levels, allowing you to effectively manage stress and improve sleep quality.
And the good news is that Ripple compliments the data from your existing favourite wearables. In effect you get the full picture on how your nutrition choices impact energy for exercise and training, while preparing you for better recovery and sleep.
No doubt, wearable technology is revolutionising sports performance providing athletes with invaluable insights into their performance, health, and recovery.
Self monitoring devices play a crucial role in enhancing performance and tracking progress, helping athletes stay at the top of their game - and enabling us to enjoy their incredible endeavours.
We believe that personal knowledge should be available to all of us. Tracking and maintaining a healthy balance between nutrition, activity and hydration has a direct impact on wellbeing and happiness - and that knowledge should no longer be a secret of the elite athlete!
Ripple allows you to eat, sleep and rest like a professional athlete - without the Herculean efforts required to be on the world stage.