GUIDE TO SPEED AND CHANGE OF DIRECTION TESTING FOR ACADEMY PLAYERS

Speed is a valued weapon in sports, and testing it properly needs a repeatable protocol, as well as the right equipment

 

All speed tests are direct assessments of athlete speed and potential indicators for Performance Development.
While speed tests are very useful – they are often a challenge with groups, unmotivated athletes, or athletes with unacceptable readiness levels.
This guide tells you how to analyze and interpret the data for training and conditioning needs.

The Common Athlete Speed Tests

Speed tests are the most valued scores in sports performance, and field testing player speed is inexpensive and simple to do. While jump testing performance is associated with leg power and possible athlete speed, direct measures of athlete sprinting ability are still necessary.
The most important factor is repeatability of the measurement. You can administer all of the tests below with simple smartphone video apps.
Acceleration  Any distance where the athlete continues to gain speed is considered a measure of acceleration. Typically, most speed tests in team sports are 10-40 meters in length, which is a sufficient distance to measure the ability to accelerate.
Repeated Sprint Ability Multiple short sprints with abbreviated rest periods are valid ways to evaluate player anaerobic conditioning. Aerobic factors do contribute to recovery, but they are not primary influences on testing success. For proper analysis, you need a baseline sprint to calculate decay of speed from fatigue.
Short Shuttle Tests
Continuous shuttle sprints like the Bleep Test are not actual measures of speed, but are anaerobic conditioning tests that require athlete speed to score favorably. Due to their poor correlation to performance, most shuttle tests are done to evaluate the mental condition of the athlete as a psychological assessment.
Maximal Velocity Top end speed represents the athlete’s peak velocity and it occurs when an athlete can no longer accelerate. In order to properly assess maximal speed, the length of the sprint should be greater than 30 meters with senior-level athletes. A distance of 10 meters after acceleration is long enough to sufficiently calculate peak velocity.
Combined Speed Tests   = 

5-10-5 / 3 Cone Drill / Lateral Launch Drill 

 Testing that requires an athlete to decelerate and maneuver in another direction is associated with agility and not only assesses raw capacity it can gauge the ability to perform change of direction.

Change of direction testing comes in many forms, but the most popular is a 20- 40m / yard distance in total, requiring an athlete to accelerate – decelerate – turn and repeat.

These tests are more informative of both raw capacity and tracked over time shows an athletes development

Testing speed does require the athletes to be fresh and injury-free. We highly encourage coaches to make sure the warm-up is extensive and to perform the test on a familiar surface i.e. do it on your training pitch

The combined Tests are generally my preference as we can measure speed, acceleration and deceleration in on go as well as assessing the quality of changing direction which is trainable skill.

Just testing speed with a timer doesn’t indicate whether the athlete has developed the correct foundations for speed

Focusing on the foundations earlier in an athletes development will allow for enhanced performance at elite level

Whats Needed for Testing?

Based on the requirements of safe sprinting, a testing period includes a complete warm-up and at least two repetitions of the required drills. Due to the popular approach of testing multiple speed qualities in the same session, such as short acceleration and change of direction (COD), it is common to have fewer repetitions per test. Most speed testing sessions last 30-60 minutes,

For a COD test do the test twice per athlete with approx 15m between tests for each athlete – during this time we assess their movement ability using our Athlete Movement Screen KAMS

Therefore the athlete will need their training gear complete with trainers and football boots

Equipment and Procedures

Assessing speed, whether linear or multi-directional, requires precise and accurate testing equipment and protocols. We use both video analysis and GPS Pods such as the Catapult Optimeye to record the session fully.
GPS Pods / Sensors – Continuous instantaneous speed is of growing interest to sport scientists and becoming more popular with coaches as well. A GPS system enables us to see velocity changes better than timing gates do and also assess how well anthlete can accelerate off both feet.

 

“Integrating sports science technology into an athlete management system is essential for coaches.”

Analyzing Speed Performance

Due to changes in athlete weight or body mass during maturation, sometimes aiming for just speed improvement or reducing time for a specific test is not the optimal
Efficiency may be better but at times not, because of growth changes
Also comparing athletes to a norm or team score is disheartening for some and too easy for others
A more level playing field within a squad or an age range is measure improvements in percentage changes
This gives every squad member a chance to improve relative to their own ability and maturation stages