What do you want from your Analysis?

As technology becomes more accessible its implementation into sport becomes ever vaster. With affordable solutions, performance analysis is now accessible across all levels of sport.

So how should you properly implement analysis to get the most out of it? It can be a complex process with limited education from National Governing Bodies and what is being delivered is often by those with little knowledge themselves.

Tuning into your chosen sport on a Saturday afternoon can be just as misleading. Commentators are frequently finding value in stats to support their thoughts one week and discarding them the next as ‘not showing the bigger picture’. Remember they have a narrative to tell an agenda to sell, which is to entertain not educate!

The long and short is that technology is only a tool, so if you do not fully utilise this tool is it worth the expenditure? A builder would not hire a bulldozer to knock down a 3ft wall, he’d use a sledge hammer. So unless you know your tools, how do you know what you need?

I’ve been very fortunate to work alongside a variety of different coaches in different sports. Although every coach has seen the value of analysis, the ones who understand its ability to change behaviour I believe have received the most out of it.

So what is the difference?

‍They understand that analysis is a tool to support the learning process, as a team and individually. They use stats to support decisions but never in isolation. These are always linked back to the footage they represent.

Before you get to this stage, I urge you to answer these questions:

1. Why do you want to use analysis?

2. What do you want to get out of it?

‍Broadly speaking analysis can be split into two few key things; data collection and feedback. In my next few blogs I’ll touch upon these and hope to offer some advice on implementing analysis into your coaching process.