The Metric Hamburger
This has been the decade for measurement in sports science. With the advancement of technological equipment, we have become more objective than ever in assessing “performance.” Sleep tracking, GPS, internal load, force plates, readiness, and other relevant biomarkers place numbers on outputs and seek to create hierarchical norms. “Your sleep score today is 93.4,” sounds much more precise and accurate than simply asking an athlete “how did you sleep?” Is one better than the other? Perhaps this is debatable pending validity, buy-in, accountability, and content knowledge, but what is not, is that at the end of the day subjectivity matters. In fact, subjectivity may be more important than ever for today’s performance coach who is swimming in an ocean of noise begging to be thrown the preverbal signal/life vest.
I am not a metric nihilist. I measure. I manage. However, I do rely on my critical thinking skills. A number is simply a number. It needs context to breath, to narrate, to become actionable. That context comes in the form of assumptions and analyzation, both are subjective. I call this the metric hamburger.
On each side of the burger is a bun. The top and bottom buns are subjective, the hamburger is the “metric.”
Assumptions (Top Bun):
What’s the problem being solved?
Who chooses what to measure?
Face validity of the measure
Validity of the instrument used to measure
Is there a learning effect for the measure/metric?
Can I rely on my first principles knowledge (physiology, biomechanics, tactical, technical)?
Burger = Metric
The bottom bun is subjective:
Analyzation/Communication (Bottom Bun):
How do we interpret this number
What are the limitations to this metric
How do we communicate this to the athlete/coach/front office
In the best of times, we are subjective beings. We are driven by stories and emotions, not spreadsheets and box plots. Every metric has its limitations. Some, more useful than others, but we must critically think before engaging in measure in order to avoid the “Wizard of Oz” fallacy which has proven detrimental in the social sciences. In fact, it morphed into Campbell’s law which states: the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” This is not the future we want as performance professionals.
Sports performance lives in the world of complexity and uncertainty. Use metrics, use heuristics, but always foster your subjective reasoning…and don’t apologize for it!
