DHL Stormers

Based in Cape Town and competing in Super Rugby, the DHL Stormers are one of the world’s best

rugby teams. In 2018, the team integrated its existing Catapult wearable technology with the Catapult AMS to centralise performance, medical and wellness data in a single platform.

Stephan Du Toit, Head Strength & Conditioning Trainer at the Stormers, has been using Catapult for several years to better manage the load of his athletes. He believes the addition of Catapult AMS has helped to improve the collection and communication of data across the organisation.

“Marrying wearable technology with Catapult AMS means that we can have one dataset that we can make real in-depth decisions on,” says Du Toit. “The value of Catapult AMS is profound because the players take more of an interest in their own performance and start to understand that when we do certain things they get these benefits from what they’ve done. That can ultimately lead to improved performance and winning more games, winning more cups, and enjoying the game so much more.”

The integration between wearables and Catapult AMS also automates a lot of the manual work of player assessments, which Senior Physio Wayne Hector uses to increase efficiency.

“With the AMS system it allows players to manage a self-screening process in the morning, which means that I don’t have to physically be in touch with each player before their day starts.

“The system flags players based on their musculoskeletal results in the morning and that just allows us to be a lot more efficient at the start of the day before the players hit the park.”

The introduction of Catapult AMS has also been a direct benefit to the Stormers’ players. Second row Chris van Zyl particularly appreciates the flexibility of using data to inform day-to-day training decisions.

“Through a combination of putting in our daily wellness and RPEs after every training session, our S&C coach gets an understanding of where we are and how we’re feeling.

“Based on that, if there’s an issue of undertraining or overtraining, he will adjust our sessions accordingly to ensure he gets the best out of us every day.”