FreeLap Timing System
/How fast are you? A question posed to athletes and coaches alike, and their answers will often have more weight to those questions than most think. This is why accuracy of sprint times is so important. Not only will accurate timing protocols allow coaches to track progress, but athletes competing for a scholarship will rely heavily on those times to at least get a “look” from a college scout. This is why we recently purchased the “FreeLap Timing System.”
The FreeLap Timing System (freelap) is a timing system that produces a magentic field around the timing gait. Athletes wear a tracking chip on their waistband, and when the chip crosses the magnetic field, times are recorded. Setting up the freelap system takes about 2-3 minutes, and requires a smart device for data to be exported to via the freelap app. Timing gaits are posted at your desired distance, tracking chips are placed on the waistband of the athlete, once this is completed you are essentially ready to run. This simple set up is huge for a facility like ours because not only can we track times on our athletes, we can track multiple athletes at once while receiving live feedback after each sprint. Whether we are testing, or tracking, this data allows us to make critical volume decisions, and give accurate coaching cues.
Consistency is the number one variable that will determine sprint times. The freelap system removes the #1 most inconsistent variable of all, and that is a coach and their stopwatch. I myself will not produce consistent times on a daily basis, the only thing consistent about a coach is the coach themselves. Removing this variable by placing job of gathering times with a machine makes each rep more valuable in the sense that athlete does not waist reps with bad times; plus I can now analyze the technique of the sprint without having to worry about a stopwatch. The freelap system has been proven by research to be within two-hundredths of second compared to a multi beam timing systems (the gold standard of timing systems).
With this new tool, the possibilities are endless. Test days will be more seamless, and take less time to gather athlete data. Data is more accurate and accessible, and with this data we can create even more accurate training protocols specific to each athlete. Not to mention when athletes see timing gear, they usually bow up, and sprint a little faster as well!
I will be diving into our sprint data in the future. I will discuss how we use the data, how to apply the data, and what the data actually means to athletes. Thank you for your time! I hope you enjoyed the read! If you have any questions hit us up!
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