“We primarily use Quintic as a video analysis tool that allows us to implement in-session and post-session analysis, while also providing comparative analyse of techniques and movements over a period of time. Quintic enables us to compare videos and technique from today’s training session against past (and future) training sessions and competitions.

If with one of our athletes we are looking at the angles of shoulder to elbow to hand, Quintic allows us to draw this angle straight onto the video and provide the athlete with ongoing visual feedback. One of the most important ways I utilise Quintic is my post session coaching analysis, with functions like the export analysis tool and the stage by stage multi-photo sequence.

Export analysis allows me to add angle drawings, foot contact timings, coaching points and other notational analysis to the video; I can then email this video along with the free Quintic Player to any of my athletes. The extra functionality of the Quintic Player allows my athletes to watch the video and see all of my coaching points as they play the video through, scroll back and forth, use frame advance and other functions. Retaining a video copy of important training/competition notes and advice allows them access at any time.

I like the stage by stage photo sequence which breaks down the technique into a series of still images with coaching points, shapes and angles overlaid on top such as angle of dorsiflexion, angle of pole at take off, various angles throughout the jump, and lines to highlight body alignment /position. I can drop the stage by stage sequence into Word or Excel, save it as a digital image or easily send it by email /CD to the athlete as further coaching advice or for discussion…

Quintic allows me to provide advice and feedback to the athlete in this fantastic way – the athlete can access it away from the training session – in this way we keep building a pattern of analysis as we move forward throughout our training season.

Alan Richardson – National Coach Mentor
Pole Vault and Jumps : England Athletics

www.englandathletics.org

England Athletics have teamed up with Quintic to offer fantastic discounts for licensed coaches on their sports analysis software. To obtain this discount you must be an UKA licensed coach with up to date CRB check.

The options are:

Quintic Sports – just £195
Quintic Coaching – just £300.00
Quintic Biomechanics – just £475.00

For more information on how to order, please contact your local Club & Coach Support Officer – find their contact details here. Coaches on our National Coach Development Programme may qualify for a larger discount – contact your National Coach Mentor.

For further details please visit : http://www.englandathletics.org

Quintic along with Dartfish, Silicon Coach, and Focus were invited to attend and asked to demonstrate how video analysis systems could benefit the sports coach in both individual and team sport disciplines.

Simon Kerry, one of Quintic’s Sports Science Consultants, represented Quintic and used his own experiences of working with coaches to demonstrate how functions such as: Blend, Angles, Export *avi, Quintic’s Premier capture, and Automatic Digitisation allow the coach to capture, analyse and provide feedback quickly and effectively.

As a result of this presentation the EOC (Estonian Olympic Committee) have purchased several Quintic software licences. We would like to take this opportunity to wish them all the best in their future coaching.

Case studies are available to download from our website, that explain how Quintic software can be used in a variety of different sports and scenarios. http://www.quintic.com/quinac/education.htm

There was a new stadium record set in the AAA’s women’s javelin by the in-form Goldie Sayers (Belgrave Harriers). She spiked the turf at 63.02m during the second round to seal her place for Osaka in three weeks time. Below is a 4-image photo sequence of her winning throw.

Quintic Consultancy would like to wish Goldie and all the other members of the British Team all the best in the forthcoming World Championships in Osaka, Japan.

Callum Orr
Head of Coaching and Teaching
UK Athletics Ltd

“Being able to synchronise different throws, current and best, proved invaluable in preparation for the games in Sydney 2000 & Athens 2004. I can compare the timing of current training throws with my best 90m efforts from previous years. By synchronising current and best throws at release we could rewind in slow motion and analyse the differences.”          Steve Backley OBE

4 time European Gold
3 time Commonwealth Gold
2 time World Silver
2 time Olympic Silver

UKA accredited Coaches are able to purchase Quintic Video Analysis Software at a discounted rate, please contact Quintic for more details info@quintic.com For further details about the range of Quintic software please visit: www.quintic.com/software/

Goldie Sayers has broken the British javelin record with a mark of 65.05m at the Loughborough International athletics match on May 20th.

The 24-year-old beat her own personal best by 3.60m and eclipsed Kelly Morgan’s previous national record of 64.87m, which was set in July 2002. And the effort also helped Sayers – a Loughborough graduate herself – claim top spot in the 2007 world rankings.

“It’s a shock but not that much of a shock. I knew I was going to throw a personal best because training has been going fantastically well,” said Sayers.

And that training is down to some highly sophisticated sports analysis software, designed and developed in Britain. For the last 6 years, Sayers has been working with Midlands-based biomechanist Dr Paul Hurrion, who in 1997 founded ‘Quintic Consultancy’.

Quintic continues to be responsible for the evolution of some of sport’s most highly regarded analysis and performance development software. Using a combination of high-speed video analysis and proprietary Quintic Biomechanics software, every single aspect of Goldie Sayers’s throwing technique – both in training and competition – was broken down and examined with her coach Mark Roberson to determine areas for improvement and for potential stress.

It’s vitally important, says Hurrion for several reasons.

“Goldie is representative of a type of sportswoman whose best achievements are yet to come,” he explains. “Underlying all our work is the given that at her level of biomechanical ability and preparedness it is possible to make a marked improvement in most components of her performance, but only after the most penetrative understanding of the body’s kinematics.

“Secondly… and thirdly, I suppose,” says Hurrion with enthusiasm. “Goldie is young and there’s no reason she shouldn’t win Olympic medals in 2008 and 2012 – provided she is spared injury.

“And that’s an important preventative benefit of potent biomechanical analysis – it’s no use being the best if you’re always injured.”

In a red-hot field, GB & NI’s Goldie Sayers proved her early season form is no flash in the pan as she won the Norwich Union Glasgow Grand Prix (Sunday 3rd June) competition with a fine second round effort of 63.59m, just less than one-and-a-half metres down on the British record she set at the Loughborough International a fortnight earlier. Last year’s European Champion and current Olympic silver medallist Steffi Nerius (Germany) was 2nd with a best of 62.57m and European silver medallist Barbara Spotakova (Czech Republic) was 3rd with 62.26m. “It wasn’t a bad day as we’ve trained in far worse weather than this! My aim was to throw long and I’d expected to throw that far on a good day so I’m pretty pleased about it. I haven’s backed off training for Osaka (World Championships) so in theory I should have some more big throws.”

International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) officials recognised that one day a javelin would be thrown the length of the field and land among spectators, with potentially lethal result. The solution, introduced in 1986, was elegant in its simplicity: the centre of balance of all javelins was moved forward 4cm.

As a result they now fly in a more pronounced arc, travel 20m or so less and land point first more often. Top athletes use javelins with a narrower point for headwinds and a wider one for tailwinds, yet the range of their throws is more consistent. Competitors, however, can only use IAAF-approved javelins: smooth-surfaced, hollow, made of either aluminium or carbon-fibre and weighing no more than 800g.

Vibration is the big enemy of the javelineer. “When a javelin is thrown you can see how it vibrates in the air” says Claire Davis, senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham’s school of metallurgy and material science, “so the question is how to damp them”.

“New materials are coming in that would change characteristics in flight,” explains Davies. “These smart materials, called piezo-electric ceramics, have active dampening. They can respond to external stimuli, so applying a stress such as vibration will generate an electric impulse within their structure that stiffens the material, causing it to vibrate less.” Andre Aggasi already has tennis racquets made of this material, and it is also used in competition skis.

However, even if technology isn’t allowed to improve the javelin, it can improve technique. Steve Backley, javelin silver medallist at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, and who is aiming for Games gold this year, uses biomechanical analysis software developed by Quintic Consultancy Ltd, a Coventry-based company set up by sports scientist Dr Paul Hurrion. The software compares high speed digital video images of athletes in action.

“By synchronising current and best throws at the moment of release, we can analyse the difference,” says Backley. For him, the software tool proved invaluable in his preparation for the Athens Games…

“Being able to synchronise different throws, current and best, proved invaluable in preparation for the games in Sydney 2000 & Athens 2004. I can compare the timing of current training throws with my best 90m efforts from previous years. By synchronising current and best throws at release we could rewind in slow motion and analyse the differences.”

Steve Backley OBE

4 time European Gold
3 time Commonwealth Gold
2 time World Silver
2 time Olympic Silver