Return to play

Return to play moves an injured player back to full training in seven stages, from injured to post-return monitoring. Each stage has a load target set as a share of the player's own sessions before the injury.

Category
Load management
Unit
Metres (m), as a share of baseline

How it is calculated

Stage target = baseline distance × stage share

  • The baseline is the player's average total distance per full session in the 28 days before the injury.

Injured: 0%. Complete rest: 0%. Active recovery: 20%. Partial training: 50%. Full training: 80%. Return to play: 100%. Post-return monitoring: 100%, watched for 28 days.

The baseline is fixed when the plan starts. A player with no sessions in that window has no baseline, and the app does not invent one.

Moving up a stage needs medical clearance, recorded in the tracker with its date and notes.

How to read it

Staff log the player's distance at each stage and see it against the target, so the decision to move up a stage rests on what the player actually did.

Return-to-play targets from a 5 400 m baseline

Return-to-play stages for the example player
StageTargetLogged
Injured0 m0 m
Complete rest0 m0 m
Active recovery1 080 m1 180 m
Partial training2 700 m2 610 m
Full training4 320 mNot reached
Return to play5 400 mNot reached
Post-return monitoring5 400 mNot reached
Example data, not real player data.

Where you see it in the app

Metric Athlete return-to-play tracker: recovery progress, the current stage with its target load and criteria, medical clearance and logged sessions against target.
The coach web app, shown with example data. Not real players.