This collaborative study included a novel approach to understanding athlete-surface interactions on natural turfgrass sports fields using advanced/new technologies. The purpose of the study was to examine how variations in natural turfgrass sports field properties (within the field and over a season) influenced collegiate Club athletes’ perceptions of sports injury risks, performance during practice and competition, and actual incidence of ground-derived sport injuries.
The second year of the project again examined the role of the playing surface on athletes, focusing more acutely on performance metrics (e.g., active time, distance traveled, sprint counts, accelerations, etc.), as well as multiple categories of self-report data including, for example, mood state, sleep quality, sleep duration, RPE, etc. Several distinct questions of interest have emerged from the project, the products of which are in various stages of development.