Training that increases the rate at which an athlete can produce force directly correlates with success on the field or court.
TRAZER’s Measurement of Reaction Time Great reaction time depends on the recognition of your opponent or the ball, a prompt decision to act and the correctness of the resulting physical action. A novice athlete, for example, may recognize the ball or opponent adeptly, but their inexperience may result in an incorrect decision that produces an inappropriate or inefficient response. TRAZER quantifies your ability to react both quickly and to move in the correct direction to visual and auditory cues mimicking real sports activities. TRAZER measures the elapsed time from the instant each cue is presented until your response in the correct direction.
TRAZER’s Measurement of 1st Step Quickness First Step Quickness is one of the most valued attributes of a successful athlete. In sports vernacular, an athlete possessing “first-‐step quickness” accelerates well. By contrast a high “top end” is a measure of speed. 1st-‐ step quickness often determines who makes the play. 1st-‐step quickness is a component of overall agility, but like reaction time, it is a component that is useful and meaningful to look at separately. Numerous training tools are available to measure your average speed between two points. For example, a stopwatch is used to measure your 100 meter time. Your average velocity between two points is the ratio of the change in your position (how far you traveled) to the time interval it took you to get there (e.g., feet per second or miles per hour).
However, any time your speed/velocity actually changes, the change is measured as acceleration. An everyday example of acceleration is pressing down on your car’s accelerator pedal. Acceleration is the ratio of the car’s change in velocity (in feet per second) to the time (seconds) it took for the change to take place. Therefore, the measurement units are feet divided by seconds squared. st
It is important to note that 1 Step Quickness applies to more than just increasing velocity. Increasing your velocity is acceleration; decreasing your velocity is usually termed “deceleration.” So braking our car -‐ again a change in velocity -‐ is deceleration. Since acceleration occurs whenever you change velocity or your direction of movement, you can see how acceleration can be more valuable for testing of, and training for, agility than speed or velocity is. You may have heard the sports jargon that “speed kills” when referring to the break-‐away speed of a running back or split end, for example. Speed can certainly be dangerous, but acceleration can be a more potent weapon. Here’s another common example, a roller coaster, is thrilling because of its acceleration, not its speed. A roller coaster’s top end seldom exceeds freeway speed limits. Any valid test of first-‐step quickness must not only measure acceleration, it must also replicate the real-‐world cues that actually cause the person to accelerate in the first place. Until TRAZER, acceleration over sport-‐relevant distances and directions in response to real-‐world cues could not be practically measured.
8: TRAZER® Performance Assessments 30