Garmin Clipboard: A Free, Easy Way for Coaches to Track Athlete Performance

Historically, coaching a team of athletes has required a bit of guesswork. Are they sleeping well? Are they working hard enough? Are they allowing enough time for recovery between intense workouts? These may be educated guesses, but they’re guesses nonetheless — until now, that is. Garmin Clipboard™ is a free, all-in-one team app that eliminates the guesswork between coaches and their athletes.

As long as athletes wear compatible Garmin smartwatches, Garmin Clipboard operates as one easy-to-manage dashboard that helps coaches track, train and communicate with their athletes. Providing data on the team as a whole, as well as being able to drill down further on an individual athlete, Clipboard replaces the older paper chart model with intuitive technology available on your preferred compatible phone, tablet or computer — and provides a whole host of features to boot.

Hassle-free Workouts

Scheduling workouts — whether for the whole team or for one individual — has never been easier. You can create a custom workout with a few simple taps, or you can choose a preloaded workout suggestion from Clipboard. Then you can send the workouts directly to your athletes so they can get rolling. Once they record their workouts and sync their devices to the Garmin Connect™ app, each individual’s activity and its accompanying data analysis will automatically be logged into the coach’s dashboard on the Garmin Clipboard app.

Team Summary Charts

Once athletes have synced with Garmin Connect and started tracking activities, you’ll accrue a wealth of performance and wellness data to give you a comprehensive picture of each individual’s schedules, workouts and activities. Zoom in on any one team member to view body metrics such as sleep¹, Body Battery™, heart rate data¹, stress levels and more to get a picture of their overall health, and activity-specific statistics such as pace, cadence, lap splits, elevation gain and more will help you hone in on any particular workout. Zoom back out to identify overall patterns the team is experiencing that can be addressed in workouts to gain even more competitive edge.

Team Communication

Naturally, keeping the line of communication open between an athlete and their coach is critical, for both performance and the enjoyment of the sport as a whole. So being able to send individual messages or announcements to the whole team from the same platform you use to keep track of everything else is key, both for ease of use and for organisation purposes. (Did you make sure Sally got the memo to come to the indoor track rather than the outdoor? Now you can be sure.) This also allows your athletes to let you know if an issue arises — and it’s the perfect place to discuss injuries, which can also be tracked using Garmin Clipboard.

Daily Overview for Athletes

Being able to keep track of an entire team at once is monumental for coaches, but Garmin Clipboard provides benefits to athletes too. The personalised dashboard will greet athletes with a daily overview when they open up the app, so they’ll have a convenient one-stop shop for their metrics as well as weather updates, workouts sent directly from their coaches and more. (Note: All athlete information is kept private and shared only with the coach — if the athlete chooses to grant them access.) Athletes with an eye on a personal best will be able to set goals and track their performance to achieve them. These goals can be shared with coaches, and they’ll be able to see just exactly what their athletes are aiming for too.

Praise from Independent Coaches

Stefano Baldini, Olympic gold medalist and running coach:

“I am coaching a big team of track-and-field and road-running athletes, and Garmin Clipboard is one of the most important tools I use on a daily basis. Continuous updates about training and recovery of my team members and the possibility to provide direct feedback is crucial in coaching. Garmin Clipboard provides all of that and much more and helps me to achieve perfection and satisfaction for me and my team.”

Chris Gannon, head coach at Creighton University:

“Clipboard has been an incredible tool for our program. We use the data and feedback from athletes to make adjustments to workouts and recovery within the week. It has helped us to get the most out of our athletes. The updates and tools within Clipboard have provided us with insightful feedback; I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we have had such a successful year.”

Discounts for Coaches

In order to assist coaches and educational institutions, we created the Garmin Clipboard – Team Discount programme. As a coach, you can apply directly in the Garmin Clipboard app just by filling out the webform in the app. Each request will be evaluated thoroughly, and Garmin will get in touch if the application is approved for a team discount.

Get an impression of how Alstin Benton uses Clipboard with the University of Saint Mary cross country team to prepare for the NAIA National Championships by watching the video: