We do the science, you get the benefits.

IF YOU’RE involved in sports – whether you’re an elite athlete, team owner, coach or trainer – or simply aiming to beat your own Personal Best, you’ll know that Overtraining Syndrome can mean all your efforts come to nothing.

In the struggle to gain a competitive advantage, it’s easy to crank up the amount and intensity of training beyond the point at which the body can recover from it. It’s a classic example of the law of diminishing returns – and the effects on an athlete’s career can be far more serious than a lost medal opportunity.

 

Too much training and/or too little rest can result in physical and psychological symptoms that lead to underperformance and an increased vulnerability to injury and illness. The problem is being able to spot overtraining before it happens and the damage is done. If you rein back your training when it isn’t necessary, you might kiss goodbye to a place on the podium. But if you keep going and end up overtraining, you won’t even be fit to enter.

So imagine how beneficial it would be if you could use a pin-prick blood test to predict susceptibility to overtraining or even diagnose an infection up to 48 hours before any symptoms appear, allowing you to quarantine an athlete before the whole team gets sick. You’d be able to adjust your training regime with pinpoint precision, avoid infections, and keep your competitive edge when all around you, your competitors are losing theirs.

Well, now you can! Our ABELsport Performance Optimisation Test is the ultimate tool in overtraining, risk-assessment, infection detection & management. It’s more accurate, reliable, and easier to use than anything else available. You can monitor a single athlete or an entire team, making you confident that you can intervene before a problem arises. You can either send us the sample overnight for next-day analysis and feedback of results and recommendations in an easy-to-understand format, or you can use our new portable field instrument, the ABELmeter, wherever you are for on-the-spot information.
We call it an invaluable cutting-edge performance-assessment tool for the management of elite athletes worldwide, but our clients just think of it as a Godsend. It has been tried, tested, and validated over a number of years by Olympic champions, professional football and rugby teams, and their coaches. See Plymouth Argyle’s verdict.
If you’d like to know more about how ABELsport testers can protect and help you performance-manage yourself or your team, give us a call now on 01752 565676, 

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The ABELsport overtraining test

KNIGHT Scientific’s unique ABELsport test is the biggest breakthrough for years in overtraining prevention and infection detection.
It uses a single drop of blood from a finger-prick to determine whether a person is in danger of overtraining or suffering from an infection, up to 48 hours before any symptoms show. The test can be conducted at the pitch side, trackside or poolside, or even in the locker room or team bus, using the revolutionary ABELmeter portable luminometer. Results are ready in less than 20 minutes and can be used to adjust the individual’s training regime and monitor recovery – an essential tool for strength and conditioning coaches, performance optimization professionals, team doctors, performance managers, and nutritionists.

Who’s using the test?

The ABELsport overtraining and infection-detection test is being used by Premier league football teams across the UK. It has also been used on Olympians, triathletes, Iron Man competitors, and by explorer Antony Jinman, whose training for a solo trek to the South Pole was modified in the light of the test results. We’re also in discussions with numerous Premier League teams in the UK as well as household-name football teams in Europe, the Middle East, and the USA – plus coaches and team doctors from world-class rugby, swimming, diving, athletics, and cycling teams.

How easy is it to conduct the test?
The test only needs a single drop of blood from a finger-prick. The blood sample is then analyzed by the ABELmeter which produces the results on the screen of your laptop in less than 20 minutes. Sports professionals love it because the entire kit can fit on the passenger seat of a car, or on the seat alongside them on the team bus, and the procedure is easily learned and well within the capabilities of any team doctor, nutritionist, S&C coach or physiotherapist.

How easy is it to interpret the results?
Very. The test shows whether the individual is in danger of overtraining or, on the contrary, has spare capacity and can be pushed harder in training. The result comes in the form of a curve on a graph that indicates the player’s state of fitness and whether she or he might be suffering from an underlying infection. Graphs from each subsequent test can be overlaid instantly on-screen to show the player’s progress – and while we will help you interpret the curves initially; our clients very quickly learn to interpret them successfully themselves.

Would you do all the testing for me?
Yes, if that’s easier for you. Some of our clients prefer to conduct the finger-prick blood tests themselves then send the samples to us overnight for testing in our UK laboratory. We’re able to e-mail them the results the same day and give our interpretations and observations directly to the team doctor, nutritionist or physio. We’re quite used to team doctors from Premiership teams ringing us from the team coach on the way to a game, asking whether it might be better to play or rest a specific player. 

What will I need to do our own testing?
We’ll supply you with everything you need. That will include an ABELmeter (a portable luminometer), a tube warmer, pipettes, reagents, and assorted bits of kit. If you don’t have a laptop or netbook, we can supply one of those, too.

I want it! How do I get it?
Placing a web order is easy. Or just contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how our testing can help you. We don’t just sell you a box of bits and leave you to get on with it. We can explain how the test works, and how you can make the best possible use of it for the sports professionals you care for. Alternatively, you may want us test to your entire team or squad initially to establish basal levels, then repeat the testing a week later. After that, you can continue testing all of them or just concentrate on those whose results indicate the most cause for concern. The benefit of owning your own ABELmeter is that you can test at the drop of a hat, in between events or at half-time, and either interpret the results yourself within 20 minutes or ring us to discuss them, as many of our clients do.