Introduction
The Azide Sprint Calculator is a tool for predicting and assessing your sprint performance. You can find the calculator by clicking here. In this short article I want to discuss how the calculator can be used to find areas for improvement in your sprint performance.
Calculator Guidelines
As you can see on the sprint calculator page, the calculator makes certain assumptions about the data that you input. These assumptions are:
- The calculator assumes that sprints were done while wearing sprint spikes on a running track
- The calculator assumes that Fully Automated Timing (FAT) was used. Therefore, times obtained using non-FAT methods – such as by stopwatch – should not be used.
- The calculator assumes that timing began upon the athlete’s first movement. Therefore, times recorded where the timing began as the athlete passes through a start gate should not be used with this calculator (with the obvious exception of fly times).
- The calculator assumes that starting blocks were used when obtaining the sprint times. For an experienced athlete, a rough conversion is that a block start will result in a sprint time that is 0.1 – 0.2s faster.
- The allowable input values are restricted to a certain range.
However, don’t be discouraged if, for example, you only sprint on turf using cleats or boots. In this case, you will likely run slower than if you wear spikes on a track. However, the decrement in your sprint performance should be relatively constant across all phases of a sprint (acceleration, max velocity, deceleration). This means that you should still be able to use the calculator to determine areas for improvement.
Assessing Sprint Performance
Using the calculator to predict your sprint performance is simple enough and is explained on the sprint calculator page. However, the calculator can also be used to identify areas for improvement.
To do so, you must know the value of two variables from your 30m sprint time, 60m sprint time, 100m sprint time, top speed or 10/20/30m fly time (top speed and fly time can be roughly converted to each other using some simple maths).
As an example, let’s say your best 30m time is 4.40s and your top speed is 34km/hr. A top speed of 34km/hr translates to around a 1.06s 10m fly time (to convert km/hr to m/s divide by 3.6. Therefore 34/3.6 = 9.44m/s. At this speed it would take you 1.06s to run 10m).
Next, put 1.06s into the calculator on the 10m fly setting. The calculator will tell you that at this speed your expected 30m time is 4.23s. However, your 30m time is 4.40s. This means that your acceleration is lacking compared to your top speed and hence you should be working on improving your acceleration.
Another way to do the same would be to just put 4.40s into the calculator on the 30m setting and noticing that it predicts a slower top speed for that time (32.23km/hr for a 4.40s 30m).
Of course, 30m time is a good indicator of acceleration ability whereas 60m time is an indicator of acceleration + top speed ability. Fly times are the best indicator of top speed. Analysing your 100m time in conjunction with your 60m time can be used to assess your speed endurance abilities.
For instance, if your 60m time is 7.5s but your 100m time is 12.3s, then you likely have relatively bad speed endurance (since the calculator predicts a 11.73s 100m based on your 60m time).
Cautionary Warning
Of course, the sprint calculator is only a rough tool used to make general predictions and hence should not be taken as gospel. When assessing performance, it should be used in conjunction with the qualitative observations of the athlete. For example, you may notice that you rapidly fatigue around the 70m mark of a 100m sprint and hence may use the calculator to check whether your speed endurance is indeed lacking.
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