I’m going to test 1,000 athletes this Summer…
Before you say I’m crazy, let me explain.
Last week, I shared why data collection and testing matter.
What I held back was an announcement that I’ve been super excited to share that ties all of it in together.
Here’s a bit of the backstory…
A few months ago, Spellman Performance partnered up with Surf Soccer, which is one of the biggest youth soccer clubs in the United States.
We’ve had a relationship with Surf for a while, but to get an official partnership is something that I’m so proud of the team for. It culminated in opening our own training center, located right at the Surf Sports Park in San Diego, The Performance Lab.
The Performance Lab is state-of-the-art, and we’re able to train athletes from all sports there, making it our new home base for our Spellman Performance athlete training.
It also opened up some exciting new doors with Surf Soccer…
With access to 1,000+ soccer athletes to train weekly, we saw an opportunity and a challenge: how do we effectively evaluate and track their speed to truly impact their development?
Over the past few months, we’ve been working hard on the Universal Speed Rating side of things to create Soccer Evaluations.
This is the latest addition to USR’s reporting, but it’s the one I’ve been most excited about for a while.
Essentially, the USR Soccer evaluation will assess soccer athletes through two key metrics: Maximum Sprint Speed (MSS) and Maximal Aerobic Speed (MAS).
These combine to create the Anaerobic Speed Reserve (ASR), helping coaches develop personalized training plans based on player profiles.
Why ASR Matters?
Simply put, knowing an athlete’s Anaerobic Speed Reserve will give coaches insights into what their team needs to work on.
A large ASR indicates an athlete who excels in short, explosive efforts but may need more aerobic capacity for repeated sprints. A small ASR suggests strong aerobic fitness but highlights potential for top-speed development.
Based on the results from the testing, Universal Speed Rating will tell us which of the 4 athlete quadrants the specific athlete falls under. Here are the quadrants:
Developmental: Low MSS & Low MAS
Speed Dominant: High MSS & Low MAS
Endurance Dominant: Low MSS & High MAS
Complete Player: High MSS & High MAS
This data is super helpful for us as performance coaches to understand where all of our athletes stand and what they need to focus on to improve.
One of the coolest parts of the Soccer Eval is that we can send a personalized training prescription to athletes through the USR platform, based on which quadrant they fall under.
Why is this important?
The golden question… You know I don’t like data unless it’s useful.
This gives us a way to asses an athlete’s ability, understand what type of soccer player they are based on their ASR score, and gives us the insights to help inform their training.
For a sport like soccer, it’s super important for athletes to have both a High MAS and MSS for 3 main reasons:
1. Enhances Both Systems
By training both the aerobic and anaerobic systems, athletes can develop speed endurance, the ability to sustain high-intensity action repeatedly throughout a game.
2. Builds Anaerobic Speed Reserve
As mentioned earlier, ASR bridges the gap between MAS and MSS. Developing both ensures athletes can handle repeated sprints while maintaining top-end speed under fatigue.
3. Matches Game Demands
Soccer requires players to sprint, recover, and sprint again, often at different intensities. A well balanced program ensures athletes can handle these transitions, maintain performance, and reduce injury risk.
So, back to my goal of testing 1,000 athletes.
It’s ambitious, but I believe in it.
I believe in the importance of testing, evaluating, and using data to inform our programming.
Through our partnership with Surf, our goal is to make the data and evaluations a key part of the club’s culture.
The data will give us insights into team performance, athlete performance, allow us to benchmark team progress from year to year, and so much more.
By the end of the Summer, there will be 1,000 more athletes with USR Soccer Evaluations who have been tested, evaluated, and prescribed a training program that will help them perform better.
What would a goal like this look like in your coaching setting? Are you with me?
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There's a ton more I could have gone into today… but if you’re curious how USR’s soccer evals, or any of the USR reports can help your athletes this Summer, fill out this form.
Whether you’re training 10 athletes or 1000, we want to help apply the right tools, data, and reports to your coaching setting.
Don't wait until the end of Summer to make sense of your data. Start now, because data is only valuable when it drives action.
LET'S BUILD.