STORRS, Conn. — As soccer practice began one recent afternoon, each University of Connecticut player grabbed a puck before he kicked a ball. The puck was a small rectangular transmitter that attached to a chest strap and was worn beneath the players’ jerseys.
On the sideline, a wireless receiver sat next to a laptop computer. As the Huskies performed their drills, heart rate data for each player appeared on the computer screen in real time, both in block numerals, as if on a gas pump, and in the wavy, crayon-colored lines of a collective stress test.
For nearly a decade, UConn, a perennial power, has been at the forefront of using heart rate monitors in N.C.A.A. soccer in an increasingly sophisticated attempt to gauge the intensity of training and create optimal conditioning for its players.
Coaches estimate that 10 percent to 30 percent of college soccer teams use similar technology to customize workouts, help plan their lineups and substitution patterns, and rethink the hoary tenet that harder training is always the best training.
The aim is to calculate precisely that players are giving the desired effort during workouts and, just as important, to prevent them from overtraining and to limit their susceptibility to soft-tissue injuries that can arise from fatigue.
“Soccer is a great game, but there is very little science to it,” said Chris Watkins, the soccer coach at Brigham Young University, which has used heart rate monitors for two seasons. “If you can find science, it gives players an advantage. We’re much smarter in our training now. Fitness is not an issue. We know exactly how to address it.”
UConn (17-3-2) is a top seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament and will open play at home Sunday. The team’s players, coaches and support staff say they are convinced that sports science, along with technical skill and tactical awareness, has played a vital role in UConn’s success. One measure is that the Huskies have scored 21 of their 34 goals after halftime this season.
“I think we’re among the top 5 percent of the fittest teams in the country,” said Mario Diaz, UConn’s trainer. “A lot of times we break teams down in the 65th or 70th minute of games. We outrun and out-endure our opponents.”
The idea of using portable heart rate monitors in sports originated in the mid-1970s with cross-country skiing in Finland. Since then, monitors have become popular in individual sports like distance running and in team sports like soccer, in which some players run six or more miles during a 90-minute match.
Long used in European soccer, heart rate monitors have gained currency in the United States over the past decade, most visibly with the men’s national team, which earned international respect at the World Cup for its relentless, indefatigable style.
At the N.C.A.A. level, UConn has been a pioneering team under the guidance of Chris West, 40, the university’s associate head strength and conditioning coach. Previously, heart rate monitors also have been used in training for the Huskies’ men’s basketball team; this season they have been introduced to women’s soccer and women’s basketball.
“I think it can be really good,” said Geno Auriemma, who has coached the UConn women’s basketball team to seven N.C.A.A. titles. “The naked eye isn’t always telling the truth.”
A former soccer player at Humboldt State, a Division II school in Northern California, West said his interest in heart rate monitors stemmed from the fact that athletes spent about 90 minutes a week in the weight room, compared with 15 hours training and playing games.
“What you are controlling” in the weight room “is a small piece of the pie,” West said. “So you take a step back and say, ‘I’ve got to start understanding what the total stress is on them.’ ”
UConn uses the Polar Team2 monitoring system, a Finnish brand that costs about $10,000. After each practice, West downloads data from the transmitters and produces a report of each player’s effort level that includes: duration of training; minimum heart rate; maximum heart rate; average heart rate; and the time spent in various zones of elevated heart rates.
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