In elite sports and high-performance training, managing muscle fatigue is critical to preventing injuries and maximizing athletic potential. Yet, accurately quantifying muscle fatigue without relying solely on subjective feedback has long presented a significant challenge for sports scientists, medical staff, and coaches alike.
Myocene bridges this gap with an advanced, first and unique FDA-cleared (De Novo) device designed to measure peripheral muscle fatigue objectively in just 90 seconds. By combining electrical stimulation with force sensing, the company empowers elite teams and sports professionals to make data-driven training and recovery decisions.
Q: How does the ability to objectively quantify muscle fatigue alter the way performance teams approach daily training loads and recovery?
Jean-Yves Mignolet: Traditionally, performance staff have had to rely on subjective markers—such as athlete questionnaires (RPE, wellness scales)—or voluntary motor tests (such as countermovement jumps, CMJ). While these methods are useful, they are inherently limited because they depend heavily on the athlete's motivation, voluntary effort, and can be easily masked or gamed by athletes.
By providing a completely passive, precise objective measurement of muscle fatigue in just 90 seconds, Myocene removes the guesswork. Performance teams can now obtain precise physiological data without adding physical stress or relying on voluntary effort. This shifts the coaching paradigm from pre-planned training volume to dynamic, individualized load management. Staff can identify when an athlete is experiencing long-term fatigue (often termed low-frequency fatigue or LFF) and immediately adapt daily workloads—adjusting intensity or prescribing specific, individualized recovery strategies. This data-driven approach maximizes the desired physiological adaptation of each session while preventing the accumulation of chronic fatigue that leads to overtraining and injuries.
Q: What specific technological innovations allow the Myocene device to measure peripheral fatigue accurately without requiring voluntary muscle contractions?
Jean-Yves Mignolet: The core innovation of Myocene lies in its ability to evaluate the muscle function completely passively, meaning the athlete does not have to perform any voluntary contractions. This is accomplished through three integrated technological pillars:
- Myo-CONTRACTOR: A patented, high-precision neurostimulation system that delivers comfortable, submaximal electrical pulses at distinct low and high frequencies directly to the quadriceps. This standardized stimulation bypasses the central nervous system, ensuring that the muscle is contracted consistently and independently of the athlete's motivation, stress, or central drive.
- Myo-SENSOR: An ultra-high sensitivity force sensor (registered design) that records the exact isometric force responses evoked by these low- and high-frequency stimulations.
- Myo-AI: A proprietary algorithm that analyzes the force curves in real-time. It calculates the Powerdex® index, which represents the low-to-high frequency force ratio. This ratio is the gold-standard physiological indicator of prolonged Low-Frequency Fatigue (LFF).
Q: In what ways do professional sports clubs use rapid, on-field fatigue assessments to mitigate injury risks and optimize return-to-play protocols?
Jean-Yves Mignolet: Professional pro teams and college programs use Myocene's rapid, on-field assessments in two primary ways:
- Athlete’s Availability Maximisation and Injury Mitigation: During highly demanding periods (such as preseason or congested match schedules), clubs screen athletes bi-weekly. This routine screening is not designed to look for structural injuries, but rather to detect the accumulation of fatigue. This accumulation of muscle fatigue—accurately quantified by the Powerdex® index—is the direct driver of a higher risk of injuries (such as muscle tears, joint instability, or overtraining syndromes). When an athlete shows an abnormal drop in Powerdex®, performance staff can intervene immediately, modifying the player's training load or tailoring their recovery before fatigue translates into a physical injury.
- Return-to-Play (RTP) Optimization: Traditional RTP criteria often focus on "capacity" (e.g., restoring strength symmetry, full range of motion, being pain-free, or meeting GPS volume targets like high-speed running). However, as highlighted in recent elite research (Buchheit et al., 2026), these metrics do not measure "tolerance"—how well the reconditioned muscle actually tolerates the neuromuscular cost of high-intensity sessions. Myocene allows medical staff to track how the injured limb recovers over consecutive days. It ensures the athlete is not just capable of completing a session, but is actually tolerating it and recovering at a normal rate, dramatically reducing the risk of re-injury.
Q: How does integrating real-time fatigue data into existing athlete management systems through APIs enhance decision-making across competitive seasons?
Jean-Yves Mignolet: In modern professional sports, performance staffs are inundated with disconnected data points—from GPS metrics (distances, sprints, accelerations) to physiological markers and sleep trackers.
Myocene's seamless API integration allows clubs to automatically sync muscle fatigue data (Powerdex) directly into their existing Athlete Management Systems (AMS), such as Kitman Labs or Teamworks/Smartabase. By centralizing this data, performance analysts can easily correlate external workloads (the "GPS work done") with the actual internal neuromuscular cost (the "Powerdex response"). Across a congested competitive season, this integrated view helps coaching staff identify individual tolerance thresholds, plan tactical squad rotations scientifically, and safely peak athletes for key competitions rather than making decisions based on fragmented, manual spreadsheets.
Q: What role does rigorous scientific validation play in building trust among elite medical staff and sports scientists adopting new monitoring technologies?
Jean-Yves Mignolet: Elite medical staff and sports scientists are naturally skeptical of new sports technologies. They demand evidence-based proof before changing their daily workflows or trusting a device with multi-million-dollar athlete assets. From its inception, Myocene has committed to rigorous scientific validation rather than 'black-box' marketing claims.
First, the technology is not built on a novel, unproven theory, but on a deeply established physiological concept. Myocene's core principle is rooted in prolonged low-frequency force depression (PLFFD)—also known as Low-Frequency Fatigue (LFF) or Calcic fatigue—which has been extensively described in scientific literature for five decades, dating back to seminal research in the late 1970s (such as Edwards et al., 1977). While LFF has long been recognized as the scientific gold standard for evaluating muscle-level exhaustion, measuring it historically required complex, non-portable, and extremely demanding laboratory setups. Myocene's breakthrough was to successfully package this 50-year-old proven physiological science into a portable, automated 90-second on-field system.
Second, the device has been independently validated in multiple peer-reviewed publications:
· Ridard et al. (2022) published in Frontiers in Physiology, which validated the device's ability to measure low-frequency fatigue (LFF) on-field after eccentric exercise (repeated drop jumps).
· Maia et al. (2025) published in Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, conducted with elite football players at S.C. Braga, which demonstrated the high test-retest reliability of the Myocene device in high-performance environments.
· Buchheit et al. (2026) published in Sport Performance & Science Reports, which established the clinical utility of Myocene in tracking muscle recovery tolerance and asymmetry during Return-to-Play (RTP) protocols.
Finally, this scientific rigor is formalized by our official FDA De Novo clearance (granted January 17, 2025). Crucially, the exact FDA-cleared claim is for the "objective measurement of muscle fatigue by coaches". This specific wording is highly significant: it is not restricted to a clinical or medical-only setting. Instead, the FDA officially cleared this system to be operated directly by sports coaches, physical trainers, and performance staff in their daily training environments. This unique clearance bridges the gap between gold-standard laboratory science and the reality of elite sports fields, giving coaching staffs complete confidence in their daily athlete monitoring and squad selection.
Accurate muscle fatigue monitoring represents a major leap forward in sports science and athletic development. By shifting from subjective guesswork to objective measurement, teams can protect their athletes and unlock new levels of sustained performance.
As the industry continues to embrace advanced performance analytics, tools that provide rapid, reliable insights will become standard across all major sporting disciplines. Myocene sets the benchmark for how innovation and science can safely elevate human capability.
To learn more visit https://www.myocene.com/