Video analysis is a form of coaching that is widely used in the world of sport since the rise in technological advancements that sport has benefited from. Video analysis can be used by coaches in many situations, from watching opponents to tracking your own players.
In sport, it is vital to understand your opponent so that you can follow their decisions and counter with your own approach. Reviewing footage of your opponents is a technique often used by coaches in order to prepare a game plan of their own. Through reviewing these videos, coaches are aiming to identify patterns in play, that could be seen by the players and used to overcome the opponent’s tactics. Though this is a clever strategy to give yourself the upper hand in a match, it is important to remember that if you are doing this to your opponent, they too are almost certainly analysing you!
Analysing your opponents game is one use of video analysis, but another is to re-watch your own performances in order to render any mistakes and improve your skill level. Through video technology such as Dartfish, you are able to take a piece of footage and set up a number of “features” that correlate to an particular action or skill. In context to football, one feature may be when you take a shot. Every time one of these features is witnessed you press the button, and at the end of the analysis you would have a set of numbers showing how often you performed these highlighted skills. This information may expose any unnoticed habits or themes that are in your performances that may be either good and bad. This means you can now train accordingly to alter this habit, or continue to work on it if it strengthens you in a match.
My experience of video analysis
During my time competing in Karate, one key feature of my training plans for competitions was video analysis. Due to few of us competing consistently on the circuit there was often new faces to compete against, and so my analysis was rarely watching others but more focusing on myself. I would often re-watch my fights to pick up on cues that may be noticeable to my opponents, along with highlighting instrumental parts of my technique (such as footwork or counter strikes). It took time to spot what I was looking for, however with patience it really helped me to adapt my game, and take my performances to a new level. As a result of this I firmly believe, and will always believe that video analysis is huge in helping performers to improve as it is objective and cannot be argued with.
Jack - Sport and Exercise Science 