# The Development and Evaluation of a Training Monitoring System for Amateur Rugby Union
## 2 Methods and Materials
### The Development of Training Monitoring System
#### 2.2.1 Pre-Session Measures  
Players recorded six subjective measures prior to each training session and match. These consisted of fatigue, muscle soreness, sleep duration, sleep quality, mood, and readiness to train (RTT). A chromatic coloured 1-5 Likert scale was used to calculate each measure, with green indicating the most positive outcome and red indicating the most negative. A five-point Likert scale has been used to assess subjective measures of well-being in several previous articles [26; 27; 28; 29]. The system used an automatic timestamp each time the player logged into the system to record their pre-session measures. A screenshot of the pre-session measures of the TMS can be seen in Figure 2.  
Fatigue is difficult to define, but it can be characterised as an overwhelming sense of tiredness and lack of energy resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness [30; 31]. In sport, it is often manifested in the difficulty in performing voluntary tasks or failure to maintain the required force or power output [30; 31]. Accumulation of fatigue can result in a decrease in performance and an increase in injury risk and therefore monitoring fatigue is essential to understand the impact of TL [32].  
Muscle soreness is often described as the soreness perceived by the athlete, presented with muscle stiffness and/or muscular tenderness [33]. The findings of [PERSON] et al. [34] suggest that inappropriate TL can negatively impact on perceived muscle soreness resulting in a decrease in performance. It is therefore justifiable that the measure is commonly utilised as an important indicator of an athlete's recovery state [35].  
Figure 1: Structure of training monitoring system. IRIS = Irish Rugby Injury Surveillance project. RTT = Readiness to train. RPE = Rate of perceived exertion.  
Figure 2: Screenshot of the pre-session page of the training monitoring system.  
Poor sleep quality and short sleep duration can have a significant negative influence on sports performance and risk of injury and illness [26; 36; 37]. For instance, consistently obtaining less than 8 h of sleep has been shown to have 1.7 times greater risk for injury compared to those who slept for 8 h or more [38]. It has been suggested that practitioners working with athletes should monitor sleep quality and duration to improve overall health and performance [39].  
Mood can be described as a simultaneous collection of affective states that subtly influence our experience, cognition, and behaviour [40]. Mood disturbance is often an early marker of unexpected and inappropriate TL and is therefore a useful inclusion in athlete monitoring practices [1]. Mood has also been measured on a five-point scale in previous research [34].  
RTT is the relative preparedness of an athlete to accept a load [5]. RTT is commonly measured by means of a questionnaire and has been shown to detect the negative consequences of training [41]. No previous study, to the best of the authors' knowledge, used a Likert scale to measure RTT.