![\"Bradley](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/c-gettyimages-2282064597.jpg\")
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\n \u201cWhile we don\u2019t have a commercial partnership with any national team, many organisations and individuals choose WHOOP to help maximize their performance during such an intense competition. \u2026 England is one of those teams,\u201d Greg Grosicki, a data scientist at WHOOP, said in an email.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cEngland will cross multiple time zones as they progress through the tournament,\u201d he said, which means players may struggle with jet lag and fatigue.\n <\/p>\n
\n Travel and sleep disruptions can have a significant impact on any athlete\u2019s performance. Grosicki said that WHOOP data \u2013 not collected from the players but in research studies \u2013 shows that on days users log travel or jet lag, heart rate variability can drop about 9%, sleep performance may fall by up to 6 points, and sleep consistency can be up to 19% lower.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cFor a squad that\u2019s flown from the UK to North America and onwards, those numbers are meaningful,\u201d Grosicki said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Another fitness tracker hitting the World Cup stage is Oura Ring. The US Men\u2019s team received Oura Rings through a partnership that the wearable tech brand has with US Soccer, said Doug Sweeny, Oura\u2019s chief marketing officer.\n <\/p>\n
\n The players are not required to wear the Oura Rings, according to US Soccer, but if they choose to do so, some of the health data could help them more closely monitor sleep patterns, skin temperature, blood oxygen, recovery and their readiness score, a metric that considers resting heart rate, heart rate variability and body temperature.\n <\/p>\n
\n These metrics could help inform when players may benefit from more recovery before or after training and when their bodies may be primed for more intense workouts.\n <\/p>\n
\n Officials at US Soccer said they are being \u201cmindful\u201d about educating athletes on how to gain insights from their devices in a healthy way, for both psychological and physical health. For instance, if a player has a bad night\u2019s sleep before a match and their readiness score is down, that could get into their head and erode confidence. Sports scientists and coaches encourage players to not treat a single metric as a final verdict on how they will perform.\n <\/p>\n
\n Players were previously forbidden from wearing any jewelry on the pitch, but as of Wednesday, the International Football Association Board\u2019s Laws of the Game<\/a> have loosened FIFA\u2019s restrictions: \u201cAccessories are permitted if they are not dangerous and if safely and securely covered.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Twelve nations<\/a> have been utilizing GPS tracking systems from the sports technology company STATSports throughout the World Cup, primarily in a performance vest that monitors physical data<\/a> in real time, including speed, heart rate and distance.\n <\/p>\n \n England is using STATSports technology to provide live in-game GPS performance data at a World Cup for the first time. The system enables coaches and sports scientists to monitor player workloads and physical performance throughout the tournament.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cGPS data is measured through small units within vests that players wear. The unit is situated on the players upper back to ensure optimal signal from the military grade satellite navigation system,\u201d Phil Keehne, director of sport science with the MLS team FC Cincinnati, who is affiliated with STATSports technology, said in an email.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cEngland are among those teams whose performance staff will have a live dashboard updating in real time as the game unfolds,\u201d Keehne said. \u201cAs a result, the metrics at practitioners\u2019 fingertips are endless, enabling them to be proactive \u2013 instead of waiting for a player to look tired, staff can see fatigue accumulating in the data before it shows on the pitch.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n For instance, if a player\u2019s real-time metrics may indicate excessive workload, injury risk or fatigue, the staff may decide to replace them with a substitute in order to preserve them \u2013 a decision made considering that this year\u2019s World Cup features more matches than ever.\n <\/p>\n \n Other teams using this technology during the World Cup include Scotland, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cura\u00e7ao, Ecuador, Ghana, Jordan, Portugal, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe are now at a level where a number of players have reached the World Cup stage with access to multiple forms of technology throughout their careers,\u201d Keehne said. \u201cWith that being said, players have now become accustomed to technology as part of the game, and they are just as intrigued with their GPS numbers as sports scientists.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Whether the goal is competing on the world\u2019s biggest stage or simply feeling healthier and more energized each day, the same insights that support elite athletes are increasingly helping everyday people better understand their own bodies.\n <\/p>\n \n Sleep has become one of the most closely monitored performance variables in professional sports. Research has shown that not getting enough quality sleep may sabotage muscle recovery<\/a>, compromise cognitive performance<\/a>, impair reaction time<\/a> and raise the risk of injury<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFor most people, very simple changes to sleep habits can make an enormous difference,\u201d Chris Danforth, professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Vermont, who has published more than a dozen papers<\/a> on wearable devices<\/a>, said in an email.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFocus on the consistency of when you\u2019re going to bed each night, and on not eating in the few hours prior,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if you have a habit of becoming a bit obsessed with data, I suggest only opening the app once a day.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n For the average weekend warrior or casual athlete, the \u201cmost accessible\u201d data points to help improve performance and well-being include metrics related to stress and recovery, which can help you know when to do high-intensity workouts versus when to take an extra rest day, Mullner said.\n <\/p>\n \n For instance, if your wearable indicates that you slept well the night before, your body may be more primed to take on an intense workout, versus if you had a low sleep score.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019m a huge fan of sleep monitoring,\u201d said licensed athletic trainer Dr. Douglas Casa, board of trustees distinguished professor at the University of Connecticut and chief executive officer of the Korey Stringer Institute, where he studies the impacts of heat on the body.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s no question it helps with fitness and having an idea of the ebbs and flows of people knowing if there\u2019s impending illnesses or how much stress particular events have caused them,\u201d he said. It also can help encourage athletes to pay closer attention to any behaviors that may affect the quality of their sleep.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s no question sleep quality is influenced by if you\u2019re in the heat versus not. And if you don\u2019t rehydrate well after an event, you\u2019re not going to sleep as well. If your body temperature is higher after an event, you\u2019re not going to sleep as well,\u201d Casa said. \u201cSo the sleep monitoring is super helpful to kind of reinforce to the athletes the importance of getting temperature down and being hydrated.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Hydration is another important metric for athletes, as it can influence regulating body temperature, endurance<\/a> and even cognitive function<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMonitoring of hydration can be extremely beneficial to the everyday athlete when doing intense exercise in the heat because it serves as a valuable reminder about the need to rehydrate,\u201d Casa said. \u201cWhen not exercising, they should follow the WUT principle: Weight, urine color and thirst are excellent indicators to assess every morning, but during activity, the objective data of a hydration wearable can be critical to stay on top of the rehydration process.\u201d\n <\/p>\n Body temperature<\/p>\n \n Maintaining a healthy body temperature and staying hydrated remain critical for any athlete. And while the weather this summer<\/a> was always expected to be a challenge, the heat wave sweeping the US has made monitoring the temperatures of World Cup players an even higher priority.\n <\/p>\n \n Tracking skin or body temperature with wearables can provide insights into heat stress and recovery, but they also may offer early warning signs of illness, since an increasing body temperature could signal a looming fever.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFor example, individuals who catch a virus often learn from the Oura ring that their body is dealing with something several days before the first symptoms appear, allowing them to focus on sleep, nutrition, and recovery much sooner. The benefit to the team comes from players being able to be at their best when it counts,\u201d Danforth said.\n <\/p>\n \n Heart rate variability, another key metric, provides insight into how well the body\u2019s nervous system is adapting to physical and mental stress, helping athletes balance training intensity with recovery.\n <\/p>\n \n As a data point, heart rate variability<\/a> is the measurement of how much the time between your heartbeats may slightly fluctuate. These variations are common, as the heart rate tends to speed up and get more regular during periods of stress, and become slower and allow more irregularity when relaxed.\n <\/p>\n \n Heart rate and heart rate variability can indicate how resilient your body is, said Benjamin Smarr, a professor in the Department of Bioengineering and the Halicioglu Data Sciences Institute at UC San Diego, who has used the Oura Ring to study health outcomes<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Low resting heart rate and higher heart rate variability \u201care good indicators\u201d for cardiovascular health, he said. A higher heart rate variability number could be around 60 to 80, but metrics much higher than that, such as 200, mean someone probably has irregular heart rhythms, which would be a health concern. \u201cHigher is better only to a point,\u201d Smarr said.\n <\/p>\n![\"Brandon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/c730491308-18077849519655068-3042480756419700720-n.jpg\")
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