Even though the adoption of a video analysis workflow in sports has had an incredible rise the past couple of seasons, many coaches still fear it will end up creating more work for them in the long run.

The thought of uploading a match video, then 'tagging and commenting' on all the detail in the coachable moments, on top of just viewing the game itself, seems to have held many back from discovering the incredible benefits that this can reveal.

This concern is certainly valid when you consider that just about all junior, school and amateur coaches have other jobs and careers where their time is already stretched to the limits!

We hear you.

And if you're in the same boat as me personally, adding the management of three school age kids into your weekly schedule can make a time investment in your 'other' family seem impossible.

When a coach, team or organisation is considering using a paid analysis system, they obviously need assurance the coaches in their club will adopt it into their weekly routine. There's simply no point signing up or downloading anything, if it won't get used.

Before I jump into covering off on this I first wanted to ask you to think a little now on why it is that you coach your team?

For most it is likely the opportunity to teach, educate, inspire and improve performance. All of which, even the academics will agree, can only be done properly with an objective approach to providing feedback.

Some food for thought when considering the value of investing time in this area!

Whilst I don't personally believe that video analysis is ultimately essential for a local U13 girls football team, the incorporation of sound principles to review and feedback to players only helps a coach do a better job of achieving these things mentioned above.

Ok, so you've probably guessed already that I we believe that you have ample time to analyse your team's matches each week, and I'll explain how.

From surveying a great number of our company customer base of amateur coaches, the overwhelming response is that a good analysis system actually improves their effectiveness and saves time OVERALL.

So let's take a look at a general example to give you an idea of how long it would take to analyse each match for your team...

1. Uploading A Match (Or Training) Video - 45 mins (approx)
2. After signing in to your chosen analysis system, you would most likely select + "Upload Video" and select the file from your computer or portable hard drive.
3. The time it takes to upload video does depend (unfortunately) on the quality of your internet connection and data plan, as well as file size.
4. From a personal perspective, when I upload my rugby team's match video each Saturday, it generally takes about 45 minutes for the whole game (2GB) to be ready for me to start viewing, tagging and creating comments to share with the players. This also assumes that you are using a local/regional server to optimise data speed.
5. I would suggest to factor this time in the overall count, BUT most coaches will partake in something else whilst the video is uploading. There's lots of productive things to do in that time such as washing dishes, mowing lawns, spend the time with your family (you get the picture).
6. A system, such as Coach Logic will notify you via a mobile App when your video is ready to be analysed (or published to your team as is) so no need to stare at a progress bar!
7. Reviewing, Tagging & Commenting On Clips - 100-115 mins (approx)
8. Well, depending on how long your whole match goes for, you are still going to watch the game, right? My example is an 80min game of rugby is usually about 90mins of footage (inc play breaks, time off and stoppages etc which I recommend to skip as you go!).
   
9. Let's also assume that you are a coach that has made some notes already during the game (yes, you should), so you'll have an idea of those key moments you may be looking for.
   
10. To analyse your team is simply a case of watching the match video, and "tagging" (pressing a filter/event button on screen as particular events take place) the moments you wish to record, as they occur.
11. ‍The short video below shows a rugby example of how simple it is to tag a game.
12. The coloured 'filter buttons' are your selected key moments you will have chosen to record (ie turnovers, linebreaks, assists, passes, set piece etc). It is only a case of playing the video and pressing the required filter button when that particular event takes place.
13. The video will keep moving along as you press the button, and record a total as you go. You never have to worry about missing a coachable moment as all systems allow you to pause, or go back if you need to.
14. Remember you're driving this too, so feel free to speed up your video at any time when ball is out of play or there's a phase occurring you don't need to tag.
15. Depending on your depth of analysis (we suggest keep it simple), you may have up to 10 or 12 event types to look out for.
    
16. Each time you press the button will add no time really, but a few seconds will be added if you wish to overlay a comment to that clip/moment for sharing (highly recommended!).
    
17. If we follow this procedure through to the end of the game, you'll see that on average about an extra 30-45 minutes mins on top of purely just watching the game is added.
    
18. I'm certainly not suggesting any hack for making it a quick process, as the results are in the quality of the detail, not shortcuts
19. But, as you will clearly see, it's such an easy thing to do, and in no way do you need to be skilful with software & technology.
20. A great way to be effective (smart with your time) in preventing 'over analysis' is by selecting only a few most important filter types to provide feedback or comments on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSFb5NhJVzc

So, what's the answer then?

I have been trying desperately to avoid an "It Depends" answer to this, BUT...

We would say as a general rule that an 80min sport would take somewhere between 1.5 and 2 hours to complete a match analysis of performance. This does vary between duration of matches and sports with small squad numbers (netball) or large squad numbers (gridiron). This also doesn't take into account any extra layering of detail you may wish to seek.

We can report anecdotally, that most teams that begin using any system are usually in a good routine, efficient and confident within 2-3 weeks.

So whilst learning a thing new initially takes a bit of mental capacity, most online systems are designed to be simple to use.

If you still think it takes too long (why would you, however?), consider this...

‍There are an incredible amount of teams we talk with whilst they are considering changing to a sports analysis system. For the most part those teams, (if already conducting some kind of analysis), are using such things as YouTube, Facebook or Social Channels and Email as part of their workflow.

I know only too well, how a scattered and clunky a workflow like this takes to share and discuss, and it isn't fast, nor effective!! I have been there myself.

You could say that much of the inspiration for Coach Logic's existence has come from the desire to more effectively connect sports coaches with their players, thus improving skills and decision making in the process.

The greatest by-product of adopting a systems approach, is that an effective analysis & feedback cycle will save time during the week at your club!

So much of a practice week is generally wasted looking for answers & solutions during training or lengthy team meetings.

With only on average a couple of sessions per week as a team, your time is precious.

I would ask you today, to consider all the "hidden" time you and your team would save from introducing an analysis workflow into your routine...

If coaches are better prepared and players are better informed, before the new training week starts, can you imagine what could be achieved?

So whilst introducing analysis into your process does take a little longer than simply just watching the game, you will find that within a couple of weeks using a new system you'll be very efficient (and just perhaps a better coach!).

Not only on your computer, but on and off the pitch, court or field as well.