1. What is SpeedSig?

SpeedSig is a sports data analysis tool that captures untapped athletic potential. It offers unparalleled biomechanical insights to measure movement, allowing you to: prevent injury, optimise rehabilitation, maximise performance, and keep athletes on the field.

SpeedSig seamlessly integrates with existing GPS hardware used globally to provide deep data about on-field biomechanical performance, including how athletes accelerate, run at high speed and decelerate. It's the sport data analysis tool that performance coaches and sports medical professionals need to assess how their athletes run, pinpoint why their performance may be compromised and highlight the areas that need focus and improvement.

2. Why is it different from current GPS systems in play?

SpeedSig integrates with existing GPS hardware to offer deep data analysis. GPS data alone tells you the athlete's output in space and time; SpeedSig uncovers the biomechanical performance of the athlete, allowing practitioners to understand how they move.

SpeedSig leverages the GPS hardware that sports teams and athletes already own – but it provides a holistic suite of biomechanical insights not usually available outside of a lab. It analyses the athlete’s movement data at a deeper level to capture untapped athletic potential.

Beyond the contemporary evaluation of an athlete’s distance and speed – which is what GPS providers offer – we use that hardware to enable performance coaches, physiotherapists and medical staff, to understand exactly how individual players run.

3. Why did you develop SpeedSig?

There are black holes in the contemporary athlete monitoring data models. Most performance coaches and physios don’t even know these black holes exist – but they definitely have them.

I've been a professional strength and conditioning coach in sport for the last 30 years, including rehabilitation roles and high-performance roles at national and international level.

I kept getting frustrated with the gaps in technology that I was trying to work with. I'd be scratching my head saying ‘why is this athlete not getting faster? or ‘why are they getting re-injured?’.

I didn't have the information to I needed to make better choices in my programming.

What happens when a player runs? How can we analyse running gait while they’re on-field? That was the black hole, the missing information that I needed.

Everybody in sport has the same problem. Whether they recognise the problem or not, they definitely have the problem. So I used my PhD in applied biomechanics to develop Speedsig to provide critical data on the biomechanical action of the body while running.

4. What are the benefits of SpeedSig?

Assess, don’t guess. With current GPS tech, it’s like flying a plane with some of the instrument gauges covered. With SpeedSig, you can see the whole performance picture.

Athletes only have a limited time in their lives to be athletes. SpeedSig offers the information performance coaches and sports physios need to keep athletes on the field longer. SpeedSig data allows practitioners to make better decisions in training intervention designs that can boost their performance, prevent recurring injuries, or improve injury rehab times to get the players back on the field.

Research is clear that in an injured or fatigued state, biomechanics are altered. GPS data alone doesn’t tell us why. SpeedSig measures the biomechanics, analyses holistic function and pinpoints the problem so you can create personalised training drills and rehab solutions, where needed.

5. How does SpeedSig work?

SpeedSig integrates with existing GPS hardware to capture performance data on the field.

We take the existing GPS unit and place it in a custom-made belt so the unit sits on the lumbar spine. We conduct a series of SpeedSig Reps while the athlete is warming up or in specialised sessions e.g. rehab or conditioning, so that team training is not impacted. By putting the existing GPS unit on the lumbar spine, close to the centre of mass, SpeedSig captures a valid and reliable signal that offers a holistic, 3D profile of the spine, pelvis and legs independently during running at all speeds, allowing a concise framework for HOW the athlete generates speed to be created.

Once you are done, simply slip the GPS unit in the thoracic mount and you are back to business as usual. No time wasted and no asking for time in training to capture data. Moreover, because it is so easy, data can be captured more regularly, meaning far more detail is available. This makes analysis of change over time far more viable.

Importantly, SpeedSig captures holistic data in-field, not in a lab or gym. Once we’ve captured the athlete’s data in the host software, it’s uploaded to our web application and from there, performance coaches can view all the data they need to optimise performance.

6. Is SpeedSig cost-effective?

By leveraging existing GPS hardware, SpeedSig offers a unique level of data for a fraction of the investment teams have already made.

Costs are kept down because SpeedSig integrates with the existing GPS hardware that teams have already invested in. In general, capturing the deep data from SpeedSig is about 10% of the costs of the existing hardware, yet it offers a whole deeper level of information.

Think about it. The average AFL salary in 2023 was $441,464.00, so the average cost per player per game is approximately $18,300, based on a 24-game season (this cost is far higher in UK & US sports). If SpeedSig only contributes to saving one game for one player, the club will have more than covered its investment.