Your daily check-ins

A coach can only manage the load they can see. A player who says they slept badly and feel flat gets a lighter session; one who says nothing and trains through it is the one who picks up the soft-tissue injury. These check-ins are how a pathway player tells the club, in under a minute a day, how their body is really going.

There are three, and your squad may run some or all of them: Wellness each morning, Effort after sessions and matches, and Recovery if you choose to share data from a watch. All three are under Health.

• These are on the player's own login. When a parent views their child, the Wellness, Effort and Recovery tabs aren't there. That's deliberate: they're honest answers about your own body, and they're best given by the player.
• You'll only see the tabs your squad runs.
• Before the season starts, check-ins aren't on Health yet. You'll see Workouts and Recovery if your club runs them, and otherwise the line Daily check-ins, injury reporting and return-to-play updates all appear here once the season is under way.

Each morning a notification asks Good morning — how are you feeling today? (7am by default; your club sets the time), and Home shows "Milan, how are you feeling today?" If you haven't done it by mid-morning, one more reminder follows. Tap it and answer five questions, one at a time, each with five choices:

1. How well did you sleep last night? from Very poor to Excellent
2. How fresh do you feel today? from Exhausted to Fresh
3. Any muscle soreness? from Very sore to Loose
4. How are you feeling stress-wise? from Overwhelmed to Calm
5. How are you feeling overall? from Really low to Great

Then How many hours did you sleep? (Roughly is fine), and an optional note under Anything else we should know? Tap Submit check-in and you're done.

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The tab then shows Today's check-in is in with the time you sent it, today's score, your sleep and your streak (1). If you got something wrong, Edit today's answers lets you change it until midnight.

Who reads it. Your coach sees your scores, never the note. The note goes to the staff who look after players' health and welfare, such as the physio, the S&C coach, your technical director and the club's admins, and it's there for them every time, not just on a bad day. So answer the questions honestly, and use the note when something needs words: a late night of study, a sore knee, a tough week at home.

After a training session, a notification asks Session done — how hard was it? and adds Rate your effort out of 10 while it's fresh. Takes five seconds.

After a match it reads Full time — how hard did that feel? instead. Anything waiting to be rated sits on the Effort tab under How hard was this session?, one at a time if there's more than one.

Pick a number from 0 (Rest) to 10 (Maximal effort) and tap submit. You've got two days to rate a session before it drops off the list. When there's nothing left, the tab reads All caught up and Nothing to rate right now. You'll get a nudge after your next session or match.

Rate what it actually felt like, not what you think the coach wants to hear. Your rating, multiplied by how long the session ran, is how staff see the real load on your body. An honest 9 after a session planned as light is exactly the information that gets a coach to look closer.

If your squad has it, the Recovery tab lets you share data from Apple Health or Health Connect. Sharing is optional, and as the screen says, it never affects selection.

Before you agree, the screen lists exactly what's read (Sleep, Heart rate variability, Resting heart rate, Steps and Workouts, nothing else) and who sees it: your squad's coaches, the club's S&C and medical staff, and the technical director and club admins. Never other players, and never parents of other players. Tap Agree and connect Apple Health (or Agree and connect Health Connect on Android) to start.

Your numbers come across when you open the app, and on newer versions of the app in the background too. For the first three weeks the tab is building your baseline, so it shows the trend without comparing it to your normal. Once connected, the tab reads Sharing is on. Tap Stop sharing at any time, confirm, and choose whether the club also deletes everything already synced.

You won't see these tabs when viewing your child, and the app splits them that way on purpose. What you can do is make the habit easy: the morning check-in takes thirty seconds over breakfast, and it works best as your child's own routine rather than something a parent fills in. Your view of the physical side is the S&C results tab, Work rate from filmed matches, and the injury record when something is being managed.

• The morning check-in goes in most days, and the streak shows it.
• Effort ratings are honest, including the nines.
• If a watch is connected, you know who can see the data and how to stop sharing.