This is part two of a blog series, where I look separately at the Sports Coaching Degree at Coventry University and the Biomechanics and Performance Analysis modules at the University of Chester, to see the benefits and examples of using video analysis in sports coaching.
In part one, I showed what an ideal setup may look like when using video analysis to improve sports coaching. In this article I will share details of a specific project from Chester University’s Sports and Biomechanics and Performance Analysis modules.
I spoke to Matt Palmer recently, who provided some great insights on how video analysis is used at the University of Chester and how this ties in with coaching too.
The staff at the University of Chester are continually looking to improve the provision offered to students. Since adding Nacsport Scout Plus to the range of Performance Analysis Software offerings three years ago, the features available within Nacsport (Dashboards in particular), have helped improve our workflows and made it the go to software for many of our students on placements. One area of analysis that is often overlooked is Coach Analysis. The majority of analysis is usually focused on match play. In addition to match play analysis, students at the University of Chester are also taught how analysing the structure of coaching sessions can be of benefit to the performance of a team, player and coach. Matt Palmer, Visiting Lecturer Sports Performance Analysis and Sports Biomechanics & Performance Analysis Technician
For this Coach Analysis project, the University of Chester students needed to breakdown the coaching session by activity duration (rather than analysing coaching behaviour, as shown in part one).
Students took to several professional football academies with the objective of analysing a session based on time, to find out how long coaches were allowing the ball to be at the academy players feet.
Using Nacsport to achieve project goals
Nacsport is an ideal tool to both collect and review this time data and draw conclusions based on real information. The Nacsport button templates have a feature where you can manually record the time duration of your chosen action (both live and post event with the session recording).
What’s more, the Nacsport interactive statistical dashboards automatically populate the data into charts, graphs and data labels (again both live and post event). The dashboards will quickly and easily show how long a coach is spending on a specific activity.
The dashboard feature of Nacsport has allowed us to speed up the feedback process that we previously deployed. Before using Nacsport, students would record audio and video from the coach and then bring this back to the Performance Analysis lab, where the analysis would be conducted and exported to Excel. Feedback charts were then created and shared with coaches the next day. Now, the Nacsport video analysis software has allowed us to create a workflow that means audio and video from the sessions can be analysed in real time, alongside charts created in the Dashboard to provide coaches and academy directors immediate feedback on the session. Matt Palmer, Visiting Lecturer Sports Performance Analysis and Sports Biomechanics & Performance Analysis Technician
And it is the speeding up of this process which will make the most impact on performance!
A student can use any camera with a HDMI port & compatible radio mic alongside an AVerMedia device, to capture the session and register in real time in their Nacsport video analysis software (see more on real time registering here).
Okay, this won’t produce the same quality outputs as the AP Capture/Nacsport combination shown in part one, but it will allow adequate analysis of the coaching session and fulfil the project analysis objectives.
Let us look at an example of what the Nacsport video analysis software interface looks like as part of this project!
Even better, when reviewing post event and delivering feedback, the dashboard is linked to the video. By clicking on any element in your dashboard, it will playback that part of the coaching session – handy right!?
And you can then build presentations with clips, notes, drawings, slides and pictures, ready to export as a highly effective resource for objective feedback.
And finally, let us not forget Microsoft Excel!
For further number crunching outside of the dashboard, Nacsport will give you a choice of exporting 5 different excel formats.
I want to say a huge thanks to Matt for helping me to show you the possibilities of expanding video analysis processes to improve sports coaching. I would also like to say a huge thank you to the coaching staff at Coventry University for their help with part one.
You can start a free 30 day trial of any Nacsport version to try these processes out for yourself. By making contact, I can get you started with a trial and learn more about what you would like to achieve. This will help me to ensure you are on the most suitable version and using the best workflows possible!