Effective Use of Performance Analysis

Keith LyonsJune 2003

This presentation is …

A presentation about the use of performance analysis approaches by rugby coaches in training and competition environments.

Coach focussed. An invitation to explore how we promote

athlete learning in training and competition. A discussion of ‘effective’ coaching.

But first meet …

A boy from Bradford

John Harrison inventor of the clock that provided accurate measurement of longitude.

A boy from Twickenham

The inventor of the clockwork radio.

Why these two?

Great examples of people who used imagination to transform performance!

Both waited a long time to be acknowledged for their inventiveness.

Both made a real difference to people’s lives.

Coaching is often like this!

Some key issues

Each of us has grown up in rugby and we have seen a remarkable change in the game.

Each of us has been influenced by other coaches.

Central to everything we do is our ability to observe and use our observations to stimulate learning.

Our experiences structure what we see and how we use what we see to change athlete behaviour.

Coaching is not rocket science but it requires knowledge of the game, a vision about where you are headed and ideas about how to get there, an intuitive, sometimes instinctive, feel for athletes and a capacity to interest and inspire.

Ric Charlesworth (2001), The Coach.

In thinking about effective use of performance analysis we need to be clear about the contexts within which coaching takes place.

Coaching Contexts

Training environments:Pre-seasonPre-competitionPost-competition

Competition environments:Preparation“Decision Support”Evaluation

I believe effective coaching flourishes when a coach develops a strategic, dynamic and periodised approach to performance analysis in training and competition.

Emergence of Performance Analysis in sports contexts Notation Time and motion analysis Systematic observation Match analysis Technical analysis Race analysis Digital convergence Software development

What is Performance Analysis?

An art … A science … That uses quantitative and qualitative data .. To record, measure, understand, predict and

transform performance… Whilst questioning the role of augmented

information in athlete learning.

What is changing?

Education’s desire to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to transform the way we understand the world and develop personally.

ICT is providing new ways of collecting and sharing information.

Sport is at the forefront of this development.

The additional information a coach provides to athletes is often called FEEDBACK.

We also use information to FEEDFORWARD and I want to encourage the view of coaching as forward looking to how athletes will become.

Additional Information about Performance

Information collected by the coach. Information collected for the coach. Information shared by a coach with an

athlete. Information accessed by an athlete.

Performance analysis requires a permanent record of performance. Digital technology is transforming the quality and content of these permanent records.

Why a permanent record?

We are limited in what the human eye/brain system can retain.

All of us have fallible memory. We can stimulate recall of events with a

shared record. We can start to use power of computers to

file, sort and retrieve information.

Types of Permanent Records

Real-time (within an event) Lapsed-time (after an event) Pen and paper Audio Computer Personal digital assistant

Advances in computer hardware and software have provided tools for coaches.

In rugby considerable use has been made of game analysis systems but growing use is being made of other tools …

Technique Analysis

First session …

A later session …

Observed changes

The software can also exclude parts of the body or all the body…

The next slide shows ball movement in a punt kick …

This software was used by a coach to look at changing a pattern of behaviour. The coach was drawing upon his observation and his knowledge gained from a coaching clinic. Both came together in the software to start an archive of how a player changes an action.

This is a good example of an effective coaching process.

There is a global range of products available!

Game Analysis

There is an increasing number of products available to analyse game content.

Game Analysis Systems

Australia DV Coach, SportsCode, Snapper

Canada StadeXpert

France Amisco

New Zealand AnalySport, Key to Analysis

South Africa RugbyStat

UK FocusX2, Prozone, Observer Pro

Some of these game analysis systems are developing a voice interactive capability.

This example is DV Coach from Australia.

Game analysis systems vary in complexity and cost. All enable a coach to ‘code’ a game and store game footage in digital format for later use. This has transformed the ‘old’ tape to tape editing on VHS.

Player Tracking

• Distance travelled

• Calories burnt

• % of time in locomotor activity

• Distance travelled in each locomotor activity

Trakperformance

Can you See?

Investment in video systems makes a fundamental assumption that all of us learn by vision.

There is evidence that some people learn differently to others and have a preferred mode of learning.

Ironically even when we assume we learn by seeing we do not always show the appropriate size image.

Effective Coaching?

A coach with a message A message An athlete able to receive and use the

message!

Sharing a visual message

How comfortably you can see an image is a function of the screen’s width and height factored against the audience’s viewing angle and distance from the screen.

There are guidelines available.

In the early '80s, video sessions at Essendon were held on a Tuesday night after training, in the change rooms on chairs we borrowed from one of the rooms adjacent to the dressing rooms.

Half the players would be dressed, the other half in a state of half-dress, or the unlucky ones, dragged out of the showers, would be draped in towels or be clothed in a club dressing gown. You were privileged to get a gown.

Essendon was a frugal club and if you could bear to hold the gowns close enough to your nose, the nostrils would be tantalised with smells dating back to pre-First World War.

The television was small and the coach made the property steward, Bettsy, stand by in case there were any technical hitches. Nothing was edited and we would sit half-awake watching slabs of vision on the flickering set until he found what he was looking for.This often resulted in a farcical 10 minutes of rewind, fast forward and rewind fast-forward. Nothing was time-coded and often the remote control would stick and not respond to the coach's commands.

Most clubs now have people employed full-time to operate the computerised systems. Players will arrive on a Monday and a tape featuring every passage of play they were involved in at the weekend will be delivered to their locker. Most will then sit down with one of the coaches during the week for a one-on-one session.

When the group gathers to watch the positive and negative tape, it is likely to be in a theatrette with a drop-down screen twice the size of the Dimboola cinema's. All the highlights will be edited and the group won't be forced to sit and watch as some technically inept coach fumbles around trying to differentiate between the fast-forward button and the rewind. It is the best teaching tool available to the modern coach, particularly the down-the-ground shots.

Screens

Centre of screen no more than 20 0 above the eye level of any viewer.

All viewers should be seated within 300 of the projection axis and never more than 450 off axis.

Size of Audience and Size of Screen

Audience Size of Screen Distance from First Row

1 to 4 21”

5 to 9 29”

10 to 14 37”

15 to 35 60” 10’

36 to 50 6’ 12’

51 to 140 10’ 20’

141 to 220 12’ 25’

221 to 400 16’ 33’

Does size matter?

Evidence to suggest that screen size affects attention.

Evidence that size affects evaluation: the bigger the screen the more positive the evaluation.

There is a debate about whether larger images are more persuasive and memorable.

The Training Environment

Permanent records of performance

Pre-season

Pre-competition

Post-competition

Systems

Digital video Hard disk video recorders PDA Tablet Laptop Technique analysis Movement paths/athlete track Tactical analysis

Does effective coaching lead to measurable and cumulative progress?

What role will augmented information playin short, medium and long-term performance pathways and learning?

The Competition Environment

Preparation

“Decision Support”

Evaluation

Performance Analysis in Training and Competition Part of an integrated and integrating vision

of long-term athlete development. Invitational. Recognising the potential of information

and communications technology. Hooking attention and triggering learning. Supporting the coach’s quest for excellence.

The Expert Coach

Big picture Managing time demands Lifelong learning Role model Mind like a parachute … works best when

open!

To be effective and to draw on a range of coaching approaches does the coach need to be a DYNAMIC EVALUATOR?

This is how two mathematicians see the future of maths tests …

Dynamic Assessment?

The computer age has provided examiners with the capacity to respond instantly to an examinee’s answers. Correct answers can be followed by harder questions and incorrect answers by easier ones. In this way each examinee is given questions which are more relevant to the examinee’s level of performance. Time is not wasted on questions that are too hard or too easy for the individual examinees.

Pollard and Noble (2001)

Rugby coaching A growing, sophisticated range of

hardware and software to provide a record of observable performance in training and in competition.

Game analysis is providing additional information for coaches and athletes to stimulate recall and to develop learning.

How to use this as a coach is an important on-going professional challenge.

I believe Differentiation is the essence of effective coaching

Differentiation transforms the organisation of a group of players in a session into the coaching of individuals.

Learning is too important to leave to chance. Effective coaching situates learning possibilities and provides a range of delivery modes.

Sophisticated hardware and software are coaching tools for observant, thinking coaches.

We are deluding ourselves if we invest in video and computer technology without integrating them into our dynamic (and planned) learning pathways for athletes.