Performance data: less is more?

Sport and exercise scientists, as well as athletes and coaches, routinely collect a wide range of physiological and performance data to assist the decision-making process informing the design and monitoring of physical training programmes. Although a vast array of affordable laboratory-based and wearable technology is now
available to collect this data, ultimately users must still interpret its meaning and decide how to act upon it. Given the complexity of the factors determining human performance, this is clearly no simple task. In this short opinion piece, I argue that in many circumstances, the decision-making process may be best served by focusing on overall “gestalt” sensations (a phenomenon whereby the mind integrates multiple sources of perceptual information to produce an overall summary), rather than being concerned with isolated variables. Through use of such an approach, it is acknowledged that in complex systems the characteristics of the whole system are often greater than the sum of its parts.