Innovative Digital Technology Increases Coach's Insight into Player Performance
If you watched the telecast of the last Winter Olympics the simulation of one downhill skier with another competitor was intriguing. No your eyes were not deceiving you, they haven’t changed alpine skiing so that competitors race side by side, it is actually an inventive digital software that lets you view two performers simultaneously. The software product, called Dartfish, is representative of the new technologies that are revolutionizing the technical aspects of coaching. Where previously, team meetings were characterized by a coach struggling with a projector to find the correct sequence of play in quest of the teachable moment, this kind of technology digitizes it into exact segments so you can stop action the technique for further introspection of the recorded moment. Forty-five Winter Olympic medallists used the product in their training for the Winter Games in order to increase their chances for peak performance.
Basically, used as a performance-enhancing tool, digital video technology allows the coach to breakdown and analyzes an athlete’s movements in any training environment.
Head Football Coach of the Bowl bound Texas Tech Red Raiders Mike Leach, a noted 1988 master’s degree graduate of the United States Sports Academy, calls the Dartfish system impressive and relates using the software to “moving players around like a moveable chalkboard.” Journalist Rod Smith writing in the American Football Monthly Magazine aptly pinpoints the goal of digital software such as Dartfish. He defines the process as, ” using cutting-edge video applications to provide virtually instantaneous visual communication between the athlete and coach. The result? More efficient teaching, quicker learning and real time technique application.” Many former professional coaches and athletes such as National Ski Coach Thomas Erhart, and NFL’from the 49ers and Eagles (circa 1990-96) Adam Walker are working with Dartfish to spread its technology. Walker suggests that digital technology will revolutionize the way coaches prepare their teams and select players. “You can see things you couldn’t see with the naked eye” with video technology says Walker. In the selection process, such as the Combines, coaches and scouts will be able to analyze the players and tell exactly if the player is able to perform at the needed capacity.
This article is not meant to be an endorsement of any cutting edge Video Technology. Rather, it is necessary for the coach of the future to know everything they can about all aspects of performance. Aspects of nutrition, sport psychology, the latest advise on exercise testing and conditioning, individualizing the functions of the players in relation to their genetic capabilities and numerous other peak performance approaches and directives must be part of the bailiwick of the modern coach.
In the quest for peak performance, nothing can be overlooked. Especially, in technique sports where a minuscule mistake can make the difference between superlative and weak performance, video digital technology is one tool of the future. It is in this capacity that our United States Sports Academy works and publications seek to delineate in our courses and programs the approaches coaches and administrators need to know about and master if they are to compete in the highly technology based national and international sport arena.