Hi all a little piece about the merits and values of straight line sprints in assessment. This was stimulated by a discussion I had with the head of fitness at a Premiership football club yesterday….

So in a number of sports a straight line sprint features in many assessments for talent identification, fitness and general baseline measurements. It is standard in the LTA and used in many football clubs. But here’s some conundrums for you :

1. Is it relevant to the sport / game play?

2. Does it have positive predictive value for athletic success in that sport?

3. Is there a better test that might address points 1 & 2?

The Hotspot system can add the much needed purpose to resisted movement exercises.

Using bands/bungees/ cords etc in conjunction with the hotspot system can result in very effective, motivated training.

An example of this is where athletes are required to move a certain distance whilst under resistance and recover back to a start position.  In many cases the athlete will cut short of the distance and hence lose out on the completeness of the drill.

Measuring such an activity is difficult in terms of the distance as mentioned and indeed the number of successful reps or the time taken to produce a set target of reps.

The Hotspot system not only takes care of the accuracy and precision of the drill but also can measure times and scores in each of it’s modes.  Using the Hotspot provides immediate feedback as to the performance and indirectly provides effort indicators and hopefully motivation to better previous performance.

To maximise the performance “make it count” with the Hotspot System.