Individual Analysis Sofware or Team Analysis Software?
Posted by David Keefe on Thu, Mar 10, 2011 @ 11:23 AM
Performance analysis in sport seems to have two distinct camps. The first is Team Analysis and is the tactical breakdown of game/practice footage and is used to develop strategy at the team level. The second camp is Technique Analysis and is biomechanical analysis used to develop the fundamental skill associated with the performance.
A basketball coach from the Team Analysis camp reviews video footage with his team (hopefully using some form of video analysis software) and his focus is plays. He shows his team how to get a player open against a certain defense so they can get a shot off and make a basket.
A basketball coach from the Technique Analysis Camp pulls a couple of athletes aside during every practice and rolls video on their shot. Again using some form of motion analysis software Like Darfish, Silicon Coach, Quintic, or UpMyGame they would offer biomechanical advice by annotating the video and giving the athlete some ideas to work. When the athlete gets the chance to perform their jumper in a game situation they make the shot.
Which one is bigger? Team Analysis is bigger. This is because it is easier to perfom and by the time the athlete gets on a team good enough to use video it is assumed they know how to perform their skill. It is easier for a team because you set up one, two, four or five cameras on tripods and you click record. Teams using multiple cameras normally have the budget to pay someone to shoot and edit the video so all the coach needs to do is go over the footage with his team. Moving the camera around for individual players is harder to do. With teams come bigger budgets and a bigger camp.
It is pretty obvious to me that there should only be one camp as tactical and biomechanical analysis are essential to winning and are not independant of one another unless you are in a sport like archery (individual skill). The size discrepenancy between the two camps is quite worrisome. Kids are missing biomechanical training early in their development and only getting exposed tactical video if they are lucky enough or last long enough in the sport. There is only so many ways you can explain to an athlete to get to a point faster on the pitch if he runs with a mechanical deffect.
Coaches please keep in mind that individual technique is the building block of good teams. Trust me, there are a lot of athletes performing at the world and Olympic level with issues that should have been caught and worked on a long time ago.