SportTrooper, a digital solution from Onepoint and CREPS for athletes

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SportTrooper analyzes the stress of the shooters to offer them a tailor-made training. Thus, the French pistol team will benefit from a new kind of training to enhance performance. The SportTropper digital solution will allow shooters a complete immersion in the world of competition. The aim is to confront athletes with the stress they face during competitions.

Indeed, stress is often a variable for the latter that must be apprehended in order to perform the best performance. In particular, they must learn to manage stress in order to make it a force and not the other way around. The SportTrooper solution is an innovation driven by the CREPS of Bordeaux and Onepoint. It is part of the SportTech call for projects led by the New Aquitaine region. In particular, it uses sports and digital players such as Immersion. Thus, in its entirety, the project aims to develop the emergence of digital projects that have a direct impact on the performance of athletes. Innovation, sport and performance are one.

Stress a counter-performance factor for athletes

Stress is a condition experienced by many athletes especially in the context of competitions. It is one of the main emotions felt by athletes. If for some it turns out to be a source of motivation, for others it can be a real enemy. For shooters, this condition can be a handicap as this sport requires unfailing concentration. Stress causes the secretion of hormones, such as dopamine, norepinephrine or adrenaline. This biological reaction can destabilize shooters. In this sense, stress becomes negative. In particular, it will speed up the breathing and cardiac rhythm. Thus, for shooters stress management is essential to ensure good performance. It needs to be channelled and understood in order to be able to par with negative effects. SportTrooper is the solution for them.

This is the subject of scientific research on stress management. In particular, researchers are working to understand this state. They define this condition as a general adjustment syndrome. In this sense, it also defines stress as a reaction of the mismatch between the athlete’s abilities and the efforts required by physical exercise. Faced with this observation, it is understandable that the training of athletes goes far beyond the framework of pure and hard performances. SportTrooper integrates this vision.

For the latter, it is necessary to do internal work. However, this work is not innate. And to understand its biological functioning, scientists accompany top athletes with solutions like SportTrooper. Indeed, well-known sportsmen like Hélène Jacolin, shooting champion testifies to the difficulty of managing her stress. She is also a functional digital application analyst at onepoint, architect of major transformations of companies and public actors. She explains in particular that during the qualifications, already difficult to achieve, the lack of habituation leads her into a state of stress. Thus, she feels like she is constantly reliving her first qualification. Her emotions take over and make her make crucial mistakes. To solve this stress problem it would be necessary for her to be able to shoot regularly in final conditions in order to take control over herself.

Walter Lapeyre, national gun trainer at THE CREPS in Bordeaux, confirms this observation. He says match conditions must be the norm in order to get the better of stress and tame it. In this sense, the SportTrooper app is born to understand the link between the psychological state of shooters and shooting quality.

Shooters must learn to manage their stress when faced with competitive situations

Forging athletes in the face of stress with SportTrooper

Thus, to advance athletes in their management of stress and increase their performance, the CREPS Bordeaux has set up SportTrooper alongside onepoint and immersion. On the one hand, the CREPS in Bordeaux is an establishment that aims to support top athletes and sports facilities. Onepoint is a French company that works in the digital transformation of companies. Onepoint is a French company specializing in the digital transformation of companies and organisations. In particular, it deals with issues related to the well-being of individuals. Finally, Immersion works as an expert in virtual reality and augmented reality.

Thus, this synergy of skills allowed the implementation of SportTrooper.

In practical terms, the solution collects physiological and psychological data, such as heart rate, degree of sweating, or gun movements. The goal is to correlate them together to help coaches identify what causes stress in shooters. With the results they obtained will be able to adapt the workouts on the SportTrooper application. They will be able to “inject” different visual and sound elements at key times to confront the athlete with his state of stress. The device includes a wide-field curved visual screen dedicated to displaying a 360 video, a video projector sized for peripheral vision, and a mobile and motorized foot, allowing you to adapt to the morphology of each shooter. Thus sessions after sessions, the training should allow the athlete to control his stress in competition. It must no longer be a negative factor that impacts performance.

Thus, contrary to what one thinks, high-level sport goes far beyond the establishment of physical performance. It integrates the understanding of the biological functioning of each individual. In this sense, sport closely blends the field of science and new technologies. The SportTrooper project is a first in the world of shooting. The SportTrooper solution looks promising by enriching the training of shooters who will be able to use their skills during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Sources:

“Onepoint and the CREPS of Bordeaux link sport and digital with SportTrooper”,OnePoint, article of 19 January 2021

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