Andy Murray Embraces Athlete Data: Training Smarter Is Better Than Training Harder
With the help of BreakAway Data, the tennis star is using data insights to make his practice sessions reflect the workload of actual matches, rally by rally.
BreakAway Use Case:
Athlete Data & Andy Murray
December 20, 2022
Andy Murray has been ranked as the world’s best men’s tennis player, reached eleven major finals, won three Grand Slam titles, and is the only player in history—male or female—to have won two Olympic gold medals in singles.
But he fell out of the top 100 in 2018 after surgery on his right hip limited his court time. A year later, lingering pain led to rampant speculation about retirement and ultimately another surgery. After his second procedure, he quipped on Instagram: “I now have a metal hip as you can see.”
Retirement? Far from it.
As Murray closes out the third full year of his comeback, the 35-year-old all-court player has crept back into the top 50 and picked up career win No. 700 along the way.
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With his sights set on the Australian Open in January 2023 and beyond, Murray has adopted a new approach to training: extracting performance insights from his own athlete data.
Speed. Power. Agility. They’re all essential.
But for Murray—who knows that another big injury could spell the end of his career—another trait may be even more important: efficiency.
In concert with his trainers and coaches, Murray has leaned into a data-informed approach to make his practice sessions—bursts of movement, sudden stops, ebbs and flows of intensity—reflect the workload of actual matches, rally by rally.
“The goal is to get the most out of him while taking the least out of him,” says James Moore, the performance manager for Team Murray whose main focuses are helping Murray get back to the top of his game and extending his career as long as possible. “That might sound obvious, and it might sound like it should be the goal of any athlete. But at this point in Andy’s career, we want to be as granular and as precise as we can.”
Murray’s data-informed approach includes a partnership with BreakAway Data and Raphael Brandon, BreakAway’s head of performance science in Europe who previously led Science, Medicine and Innovation services for England Cricket teams and the English Institute of Sport—as well as personally supporting Olympic track & field medallists and other pro athletes.
Brandon consulted with Team Murray and then created a bespoke training feedback tool that ingests movement tracking data from Murray’s GPS accelerometer wearable device. The resulting data visualizations provide insights on how well Murray’s practice sessions mimic actual matches.
“The metrics that matter most in this context are workload volume and intensity,” says Brandon. “Both as they relate to each rally, and overall sessions. The data visualizations allow Andy to understand how hard he has worked in practice relative to indicative match levels.
“Training smarter is better than training harder,” Brandon adds. “Team Murray can be more purposeful with their training plans, which supports Andy’s aim that his training is as effective and efficient as possible.”
Working in collaboration with the GPS wearable device company, Brandon created automated data processing protocols and data access across BreakAway’s systems.
Murray accesses his own athlete data in the BreakAway app, and every member of his team—physio, S&C coach, performance manager—can access the most current information in BreakAway’s backend dashboard portal, called Stacks.
Because the BreakAway app “speaks” with Stacks, Murray’s team can also see any other recovery or training data that he wants to share with them (even when they aren’t physically in the same location).
“The addition of the BreakAway app has provided a common thread for discussions, enhancing communication between Andy’s coaches and his science and medicine support,” Moore says. “We can now objectively look into movement quality, from an injury prevention perspective, and movement intensity and load, from a performance perspective. All parties are aligned to maximize his preparations for 2023.”
Question? Comment? Want to chat? Reach out to Raphael Brandon, BreakAway’s head of performance science in Europe: rapha@breakawaydata.com