How to Analyse Your Athlete’s Speed – Part 2

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In case you missed it

 

In part one of this two-part blog series I went through Speedwork’s Linear speed report.  You can read the blog article here.

 

In today’s blog I’ll be looking at the COD report.  This is a more recent addition to Speedwork’s analysis and it’s something I have been really excited to see ever since I knew they were going to offer this service to compliment the linear speed report.

COD Report

Speedworks have become known for their ability to simplify the process of coaching linear speed using their PSR system.  It should come as no surprise that over time, some of their clients in team sports started to ask about deceleration ability.  It has certainly become a hot topic in recent years.  So when we talk about deceleration and COD, in comparison to linear speed, it is probably an even easier sell to coaches and tennis players on the value of being able to perform a 180 degree COD effectively and efficiently.  

 

I must admit, I’ve been studying a lot of the COD research over recent years and must give credit to the likes of Damian Harper, Thomas Dos Santos and Dr Sophia Nimphius.  I’m pointing this out just to say that it has definitely helped me to digest some of the concepts in the report feedback that follows.  So, if it feels a little confusing you can always reach out to me and I’ll try my best to help!

 

In the linear report I cut straight to the report.  For the COD report I feel it would be better to set the scene with a brief overview of some key concepts related to COD performance.  As I said, researchers like Damian have done so much to help coaches like myself visualise what is going on in deceleration during a 180 degree cut.

 

 

In the research they break the deceleration phase into EARLY vs LATE.   Basically, the point where you are no longer accelerating and increasing your velocity is known as your max velocity.  This also signifies the start of the deceleration phase.  Researchers have split the period from max velocity to lowest velocity into two phases (Vmax to 50% Vmax is EARLY phase; 50% Vmax to Vlow is LATE phase).

 

When researchers talk about good deceleration ability they talk about doing more of the deceleration in the “early phase.” 

 

The moment you choose to start decelerating we want you to slam on the brakes EARLY and HARD!  No matter how good you are at decelerating the late deceleration phase will have a higher rate of deceleration.  But we are aiming for a ratio as close to 1:1 as possible.

 

If you do slam on the brakes HARD you should also have an overall higher average deceleration.  From my personal experience, you want this number to be 6 m/s2 or higher.  For the S&C coaches out there we are talking about coaching interventions that will promote high rates of eccentric force absorption.

 

Simple enough right?

 

Here’s where it gets complicated.

 

When coaches talk about good deceleration, they talk about stopping “later” in the approach. 

 

So in terms of stopping distance, they want this to be smaller as this indicates you have started braking later in the run.  Can you see how the use of the words early and late could be confusing, depending on whether you are referring to the deceleration phase or the distance out from the COD?

 

I have told my coaches that since most athletes will not be aware of this EARLY vs LATE deceleration phase concept, focus on the words LATER, HARDER, FASTER.  Conceptually athletes can understand what you mean by stopping “later” in the 10m approach.  Our best athletes are able to slam on the brakes from 3 metres away from the turn at a speed approaching their 10m sprint speed.  See below for our elite norms.

 

Male 10-0-5 <2.35sec Female 10-0-5 <2.45sec
3m distance to stop from 5.76m/s
Aim for Touchdown distance >0.5 standing height

 

So let’s take a look at the latest COD Speed report released by Speedworks in 2025 (V5)

 

 

The colour coding is simple for coaches to clearly see where the athlete excels and where they need to improve.

 

Just like the linear speed report, GREEN is a strength and RED is a weakness.  A score of 40 or less is generally RED, 50-60 is AMBER and 70 is GREEN.

 

These reports begin with a performance overview and include 5-0-5 times, decel and re-accel splits, the athlete’s strategy is analysed showing which stage of the run they perform well, and which stage they don’t.  After this, the report concludes with a braking phase, and a turning phase breakdown, showing step velocities for each step coming in, and how well the athlete can re-accelerate out of the hole.  You can listen to Jonas explain the report at the end of this section.  But just a couple of clarification points for me first.

 

The Speed Score – there isn’t an overall speed score for the COD report currently.  From personal communication with Jonas, there are just toom many factors right now to combine (acceleration, deceleration and re-acceleration).  So this means, you will get a performance outcome score for the total 5-0-5 time (and a performance outcome for the 5-0 time and the 0-5 time).  You’ll also get scores for their strategy (I’ll come to that later in the blog).

 

The silhouettes of the sprinters – (see the blue circled silhouette below as an example)

 

 

It’s just my personal opinion, but I do find these a little distracting because the shape of the silhouette doesn’t match up with the performance that is being described by the time (s) and the performance outcome score (0-100) next to it (for the COD to the right).  The purpose of the silhouettes are to show that the top row is the entire phase – hence you see a silhouette of the decel, braking and re-accel phase from left to right.  Just bare in mind that the example of the silhouettes are for a COD to the left.

 

The middle row includes a silhouette of the decel to the plant phase (again just bare in mind this is for a COD to the left).  Finally, the bottom row includes a silhouette of the plant phase to the re-accel phase (again just bare in mind this is for a COD to the left).

 

As I personally find that a little distracting/confusing, I just tend to scan from left to right; I know that the left side all refers to the COD to the Left:

 

  • Top row – 5-0-5 time (s) / score – e.g. 2.58 sec / 65 for a COD to the Left
  • Middle row – 5-0 time (s) / score – the decel phase – e.g. 1.26 sec / 56 for a COD to the Left
  • Bottom row – 0-5 time (s) / score – the re-accel phase – e.g. 1.32 sec / 67 for a COD to the Left

 

The numbers on the right side all refer to the COD to the right.  And of course, the combination of the decel phase (1.26 sec) and re-accel phase (1.32 sec) adds up to the total 5-0-5 time of (2.58 sec) for a COD to the Left and same for the right,  the combination of the decel phase (1.13 sec) and re-accel phase (1.23 sec) adds up to the total 5-0-5 time of (2.37 sec).

 

Additional performance scores – in the linear speed report they refer to peak velocity as well as total time.  For COD there are a few more performance elements:

 

  • Do you enter fast? (m/s)
  • Do you brake aggressively? (m/s2)
  • Time spent in the hole (s)
  • Speed out of the hole (m/s)

 

Split times – At APA we do a 10-0-5, so the athletes enter the turn from a 10m run in.  To be clear, the analysis that Speedworks does takes place from 5 metres out.  I wanted to make sure the athletes were coming in with enough entry speed to ensure the COD was going to expose the athlete’s physical capabilities to turn at speed.  You can decide how far away from the COD you wish to start the run in but the analysis will always be the 5-0-5.  There is plenty of research out there that has researched the influence of approach distance on COD performance.

 

You might have seen that in the research, some researchers only count the run if the athlete comes in with 90% or more of their 10m sprint speed.  We don’t do this as part of our testing, but we do instruct them to enter as fast and aggressively as they possibly can.  Experience shows that a lot of our tennis athletes are happy to come in with almost the same speed as they get to on their 10m sprint!

 

Strategy score – In the linear speed report the focus around strategy is concerned with P, S and R.  Think of your performance scores as the Outcome (effectiveness) and the strategy scores as the process (efficiency).  Put another way, the strategy explains how you get the time that you do.

 

With the COD report the strategy is concerned with:

 

  • Touchdown distance (m) – do you land in front?
  • Trunk angle (degrees) – can you control your trunk?
  • Hip height (m) – are you sitting?

 

Daz comment – even though Speedworks don’t refer to the above elements as P, S and R, in my own interpretation I do make the comparison.  So I see it like this:

 

  • Touchdown distance = Projection – ability to get your hips behind the direction you are applying force (displacing your hips)
  • Trunk angle = Switching – ability to stabilise around the core (also needed in order to make big shapes in running)
  • Hip height = Reactivity – time spent in the hole

 

I MUST STRESS THAT THIS IS MY INTERPRETATION AND THIS IS NOT IMPLIED BY SPEEDWORKS.  For my own understanding I have chosen to make this comparison between acceleration strategy and deceleration strategy.

 

There are now 4 parts to the overall report – OVERVIEW– Performance – Braking phase – Turning phase

 

Here is a screenshot of Performance

 

Here is a screenshot of Braking phase

 

Here is a screenshot of Turning phase

 

As practitioners that may be working in different departments such as biomechanics, strength & conditioning, medical, and coaching there is sure to be one page that peeks your interest.  I personally tend to focus on the Overview and Braking phase pages.

 

Here is Jonas explaining the full report:

 

 

Athlete Example at APA

 

Let’s look an example of one of our junior athletes

 

10-0-5 Change of direction (Left)

 

10-0-5 Change of direction (Right)

 

His report findings

His name has been hidden for anonymity reasons.  But I can say that this is a 10 year old boy and his scores are being compared to “Junior Athletes,” which for Speedworks is 13-16 year olds.  Academy would be 16-18 years old.

 

Overview

I’m working with Speedworks to help provide benchmarks for our athletes but considering he is 10 years old and is being compared to 13 year old and above boys you can see he is an exceptional athlete.

 

COD to the right

What this report will hopefully highlight is that his outcome in terms of 5-0-5 time to the right is Green (2.37 sec is world class!) with a score of “98.”  His decel is equally good (1.13 sec) scoring “88,” and the re-accel is (1.23 sec) scoring “85.”

 

COD to the left

We can see that his performance to the Left is still very good, with an overall “65,” and the score is brought down a little by the fact that his decel time (1.26 sec)  and re-accel time (1.32 sec) is a little longer.

 

 

Performance

 

At APA one of our key performance indicators (KPIs) is the ability to decelerate hard (brake aggressively) – the deceleration potential to get up to 6 m/s2.  You can see that the athlete gets up to -4.73 m/s which is a GREEN colour.

 

Braking Phase

 

If you remember from the linear speed explanation in the previous blog, there are a few variables which are coloured BLUE if they are too high.  For Deceleration these are coloured RED if they are:

 

  • Touchdown distance – too small (they need to step further in front)
  • Trunk angle – too small (they need to stay more upright)
  • Hip height – too high (they need to sit lower)

 

The RED in the above photo shows that the athlete can be even more efficient if he touches down further in front (red horizontal arrow), lowers his trunk (red triangle on the silhouette), lowers his hips (red arrow pointing down).

 

You can also see that the distance to stop on the COD to the right is 4.24m compared to 3.45m on the COD to the left.

 

So, in comparison to the Linear speed report, the story is the opposite.  If you remember, he had a low performance score for overall split time for 10m sprint but a very efficient strategy.  In COD, he has a high performance score for overall COD 5-0-5 time (especially to the right) but he could still brake a lot more aggressively by improving his strategy (see above – touchdown distance, trunk angle and hip height).

 

My hypothesis is that as he gets stronger he may adopt a more efficient strategy.  However, if he is naturally more elastic and “quick” he may typically find he is more effective with a higher more stiff approach and relies more on his tendon stiffness than muscle eccentric capacity.  This is a discussion for another day – elastic vs muscle profile of the athlete!

 

Turning phase

 

I’m not sure why there isn’t any visualisations for the Positions @ plant touchdown.  As soon as I get this rectified, I’ll repost the correct version of the report.  But the key thing you can see is the Deceleration Distribution Ration (DDR) – 1.28 vs 2.21.  Remember, we are looking for a ratio as close to 1 as possible.

 

You can also see that one of the key opportunities for the young athlete to improve is their speed out of the hole.

Summary:

The reports are a terrific way for us as coaches to confirm our bias in terms of what we think we are observing in the athlete’s sprint performance.  Sometimes it can be quite obvious what the areas are that need to be worked on but as you go up the ranks and start working with a group of “fast athletes” who all seem to look good at first glance, I can assure you that having this objective feedback is essential, especially if you are like me and someone who doesn’t specialise in coaching track & field on a day to day basis.

 

Hope you have found this article useful.

 

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  • Share this post using the buttons on the top and bottom of the post. As one of this blog’s first readers, I’m not just hoping you’ll tell your friends about it. I’m counting on it.
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Since you’re here…

…we have a small favour to ask.  APA aim to bring you compelling content from the world of sports science and coaching.  We are devoted to making athletes fitter, faster and stronger so they can excel in sport. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — APA TEAM

 

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How to Analyse Your Athlete’s Speed

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Back when coaches like me had to buy DVDs  to learn the latest cutting edge speed drills I remember watching with excitement in 2003 as I devoured DVD series such as those from Martin Rooney and Bill Parisi of Parisi speed school (see below).

2003

Parisi begins to build a national brand with results from the NFL Combine and other world-class athletes. The company also starts its 10-part DVD series that focuses on improving athletes’ game speed.  (I have all 10!)

 

As helpful as they were at giving me a real toolbox of speed drills, there was limited consideration for how to analyse someone’s speed technique beyond a basic observation checklist using the acronym  – R.U.N. G.R.E.A.T

 

R – rhythm

U – unnecessary movements or asymmetry

N – neural type (explosive or not)

 

G – ground reaction force (reactive or not)

R – leg recovery

E – eccentric control (do they stay stiff or not)

A – arm action

T – timing

 

I still remember that acronym to this day!  But as much as I liked it, this didn’t quite go far enough for me to give my athletes objective feedback on what they were doing well and what they needed to do better in order to sprint faster and/or move more efficiently.  Fast forward 20 years and in 2023 I made the decision to partner with Speedworks, a Loughborough based coaching company specialising in sprinting and headed up by renown coach Jonas Dodoo.

 

 

You can here more about Jonas and Speedworks here and here

 

Through Jonas’ early experience as a coach under the mentorship of Dan Pfaff he quickly understood the importance of observation skills when watching your athletes move/sprint.  And so coaching eye was something that was really hammered down very early for Jonas. And by accident, he realized that coaching eye was something that everyone wanted to learn from him.

 

I first learnt about Jonas’ attempts to quantify sprint performance objectively with his launch of the Binary app during the Pandemic.  Jonas said at the time:

“My expectations are probably based on my bias. This is what I think good movement looks like and fast speed looks like. And I think over the past five years I’ve been able to take a step back from my bias or at least combine my bias with reality, with real data, with real numbers and actually maybe close the line between what I perceived them to be able to do and what they actually do. A long winded way of describing it.”

 

When APA came onboard, Jonas had already upgraded and found a new partner in Vuemotion so now what happens is APA submit the video of the 10m sprint and 10-0-5 COD to Vuemotion who use AI to analyse the kinematic features of the runs and then Speedworks interprets the data with their own algorithm and set of KPIs based on Jonas’ years of experience.  What comes out the other end is a report.

 

Linear Speed Report

At APA I made the decision that even though we work in tennis where you rarely accelerate for more than a few steps, it is important for our athletes to learn to sprint properly.  So when we talk about acceleration, we’ve got to be careful that we’re not setting a goal for a 10 metre time and encouraging a technique and a strategy that gets us there fast, but puts us in a bad position.

 

I want balanced athletes that have a robust running technique allowing for individual style (same as we say about their tennis technique) and puts them in an efficient position.  For tennis this is mostly about learning to be an efficient mover per se and I can’t think of anything better than sprinting to develop your ability to work at 100% effort without wasting unnecessary energy.  For other sports it might be about putting you in the optimum position at 10m to make a decision, such as in team sports. And you also need to be an efficient position to keep getting faster in a linear sport. 

 

APA have used timing gates for years and it certainly helps to give objective data on the time of the run but it doesn’t tell you anything about the strategy used to achieve that time.

 

So let’s take a look at the latest Linear Speed report released by Speedworks in 2025 (V5)

 

 

These reports display key information including key performance outputs and overall speed score, followed by step characteristics and the athlete’s PSR score.  You can listen to Jonas explain the report at the end of this section.  But just a couple of clarification points for me first.

 

  1. The Speed Score – is a composite of Performance outcome (meaning split time and peak velocity) AND process aka strategy (PSR scores).  You might be expecting that the goal is to get 100 in everything.  In fact, as we are looking for an optimum running technique we find that a more balanced spread of ability across the factors is preferred, so a Speed Score of “70” is actually optimum.  It is colour coded so RED is typically below 40, yellow is around 50-60 and GREEN is typically 70 and above.
  2. Split times – At APA we only do a 10m sprint but you can see that if you submit a 20m sprint Speedworks will break down the run into a 0-10m and a 10-20m analyse.

 

The colour coding is simple for coaches to clearly see where the athlete excels and where they need to improve.

 

 

There are now 7 parts to the overall report – PERFORMANCE – Step characteristics – Running Economy – Step to Step – Underpinning – Rehab – Historical

 

Here is a screenshot of Running Economy

 

Here is a screenshot of Step to Step

 

As practitioners that may be working in different departments such as biomechanics, strength & conditioning, medical, and coaching there is sure to be one page that peeks your interest.  I personally tend to focus on the Performance and Running economy pages.

 

One thing I’ll add below is a guide that Speedworks have sent me to help understand the different aspects of the athlete’s PSR strategy in more detail.  Remember, Green is Good.  The more closer to Red the more this is a weakness.

 

Here is Jonas explaining the full report:

 

 

Athlete Example at APA

Let’s look an example of one of our junior athletes

 

 

I’ve chosen this athlete because he is one of the only athletes I have videoed (and we have now videoed over 50 athletes) who has some of the characteristics of running technique that we might hope to see in an athlete who has a technique that will allow them to keep getting faster beyond 10m.

 

From experience, most of our tennis athletes are PROJECTION dominant, meaning they displace their hips really well but this ends up looking like overstriding so they don’t have a good leg recovery and as a result their SWITCHING and REACTIVITY is compromised.

 

 

Sprint performance is all about combinations. And neither is it about maximizing your stride length, neither it is about maximizing your stride frequency. It’s about finding this optimal because of the fact that our limbs don’t work in isolation, energy transfers through our pelvis to each limb. So it’s not about getting the most out of the pushing leg and getting a massive toe off distance and making a massive shape because if you do that, what you may end up doing is not having any pretension in your swing leg that’s in front. 

 

And this is typically what we see in tennis players because they want to make a massive shape to reach for the wide ball as this ensures they have the best chance of making contact with the ball even if they are on the full stretch.  Contact point with the ball is a non negotiable.  This means they will often times negotiate on other things such as pretension, as the objective isn’t to keep getting faster beyond 10m in most cases.

 

His report findings

His name has been hidden for anonymity reasons.  But I can say that this is a 10 year old boy and his scores are being compared to “Junior Athletes,” which for Speedworks is 13-16 year olds.  Academy would be 16-18 years old.

 

I’m working with Speedworks to help provide benchmarks for our athletes but considering he is 10 years old and is being compared to 13 year old and above boys you can see he is an exceptional athlete.  What this report will hopefully highlight is that his outcome in terms of Split time might be “39” indicated by the colour Orange/red but his strategy (Economy score) of how he achieves that time is optimal  “73” indicated by the colour Green.

 

This tells me that as he gets bigger and stronger and catches up the older boys in terms of limb length he will surely be one of our fastest athletes as well in terms of split time, provided he continues to optimise his step characteristics through growth and maturation.  No pressure team!

 

Performance 

 

Step characteristics

 

At APA one of our key performance indicators (KPIs) is the ability to get up to “Game speed” as quickly as possible – the acceleration potential to get up to 6 m/s by the third step (Step 3).  You can see that the athlete gets up to 4.7 m/s which is a YELLOW/Orange colour, indicating that as he goes through the 10m run step velocity performance relative to the junior benchmark is going down a little bit with each step.

 

Running Economy

 

 

This is an example of what we mean at APA by a “balanced” athlete.  I don’t mean that in the literal sense of being able to keep his balance.  I mean that he has a optimal blend of PROJECTION – SWITCHING – REACTIVITY.

 

If you remember earlier, there are a few variables which are coloured BLUE if they are too high.  For Acceleration these are:

  • Air time
  • Trunk angle
  • Hip height

 

The blue in the above photo shows that the athlete can be even more efficient if he lowers his trunk (blue triangle on left hand side), and lowers his hips (blue arrow pointing down on the right hand side).  If you check back to the Step Characteristics photo, you will see that Air Time is scored “36” so we want lower air time at the start so he can spend more time pushing the floor away.

 

Summary:

The reports are a terrific way for us as coaches to confirm our bias in terms of what we think we are observing in the athlete’s sprint performance.  Sometimes it can be quite obvious what the areas are that need to be worked on but as you go up the ranks and start working with a group of “fast athletes” who all seem to look good at first glance, I can assure you that having this objective feedback is essential, especially if you are like me and someone who doesn’t specialise in coaching track & field on a day to day basis.

 

In the next blog I will take you through the COD report!

 

Hope you have found this article useful.

 

Remember:

  • If you’re not subscribed yet, click here to get free email updates, so we can stay in touch.
  • Share this post using the buttons on the top and bottom of the post. As one of this blog’s first readers, I’m not just hoping you’ll tell your friends about it. I’m counting on it.
  • Leave a comment, telling me where you’re struggling and how I can help

Since you’re here…

…we have a small favour to ask.  APA aim to bring you compelling content from the world of sports science and coaching.  We are devoted to making athletes fitter, faster and stronger so they can excel in sport. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — APA TEAM

 

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