Mobile Applications for Assessing Athletic Performance
Description
This book provides a concise, evidence-informed guide to using mobile applications to measure and monitor human sports performance, turning a smartphone into a practical 'lab in your hands'. It synthesizes what can (and cannot) be measured with apps and connected wearables, and it translates research concepts (validity, reliability, sensitivity, and meaningful change) into procedures for coaches, sport scientists, clinicians, and students.
Across strength, power, speed, agility/change-of-direction, physical health and readiness, training-load monitoring, and kinematic/technique analysis, the book explains the underlying principles, typical measures, and the most frequent sources of measurement error. Each topic is organized around real-world workflows: device setup, test standardization, data capture, quality control, interpretation, and reporting. The emphasis is on decision-making, i.e., how to select an app, evaluate whether its outputs are trustworthy for the intended use, and integrate multiple data streams into training prescription and athlete management.
The primary audience includes sport and exercise scientists, strength and conditioning professionals, performance analysts, physiotherapists/sports medicine practitioners, and postgraduate students seeking a compact reference for field-based performance measurement using mobile technologies.
More details
Person
Filipe Manuel Clemente is a sport scientist whose work sits at the intersection of sports training, exercise physiology, performance analysis, and training-load assessment and monitoring. He holds a PhD in Sport Sciences - Sports Training from the University of Coimbra and the habilitation in Sport Sciences from University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, with specialization in training assessment and monitoring. Since January 2026, he has been based at the Applied Research Institute, Polytechnic University of Coimbra as a researcher with habilitation.
His research focuses on exercise prescription, team-sport performance, small-sided games, athletic assessment, and training-load monitoring. He has authored extensive scientific work, including more than 80 original articles on small-sided games, more than 70 studies on training-load monitoring and assessment, several systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and multiple books in Portuguese and English. His contributions include funded research projects, coaching manuals, digital education resources for coaches, and a co-authored international patent related to aerobic endurance testing.
Clemente has supervised and co-supervised doctoral and master's students across several countries and has held academic leadership roles in research, pedagogy, ethics, and sport-related programme development. Internationally recognized for his scientific impact, he was ranked first among Portuguese researchers listed in Sport Sciences in Stanford's 2024 top-2% update. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Football Studies and Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine.
Content
Chapter 1. The pocket laboratory: why mobile measurement matters.- Chapter 2. Measurement quality and research-to-practice translation.- Chapter 3. Strength assessment using mobile apps and connected devices.- Chapter 4. Power profiling: jump performance and explosive actions.- Chapter 5. Speed and sprint performance.- Chapter 6. Agility and change-of-direction assessment.- Chapter 7. Physical health, readiness, and recovery monitoring.- Chapter 8. Training load monitoring and athlete management systems.- Chapter 9. Kinematic and technique analysis with mobile video and inertial sensors.