What is the Intensity Indicator, and how does it work?

The “intensity indicator” sums up all movements of a football player into one single number based on this formula for the accelerometer: √([x2]+ [y2] +[z2])/100 

Sports science is the application of scientific principles to sport, in this case football. The sports science approach at Next11 relies on deep academic knowledge and insights in tight collaboration with academic experts and football coaches. Through this unique combination of science and practice, we take pride in identifying the everyday challenges that football coaches face and offer technology that will ease and improve the art of football coaching a tall levels of competition and cross gender and age.

Despite playing an important role, the evaluation of player load should not focus entirely on high-speed activities. Focusing on speed thresholds neglects demanding tasks occurring at low speed, such as acceleration. For this reason we have created the "Intensity Indicator", which will provide the football coach with precise and meaningful insights of the physical performance of every player during and after training and match. Our approach is to present complex data in a simple way, so football coaches can make informed decisions during and after any training session or match.

A 9 axis player tag is positioned on the calf of the football player to accurately track all movements during training and match. The tag consists of a magnetometer, accelerometer, and a gyroscope that tracks movement events at X times/sec. By merging these technologies into one, Next11 has created the “Intensity Indicator” which sums all movements of a football player into a single number with the following formula for the accelerometer:

√([X2] + [Y2]+[Z2])/100 

The "Intensity Indicator" is therefore the sum of the movements of the tag at any given time during training or match. A hard sprint, acceleration or deceleration will give a high "Intensity Indicator", whereas jogging and easy accelerations and decelerations will give a low "Intensity Indicator". The "Intensity Indicator" can be used to see how the load accumulates during a training session, a specific drill, or during a match for a player and for the team. The "Intensity Indicator" can be expressed as a relative value so it is easy to compare with past performances.

It may be used to give feedback to players during training or match, and can be useful in assisting in player and team feedback as well as in deciding who and when to substitute a player. In comparison to traditional GPS-based tracking systems, our accelerometer-based formula tracks the intensity of every single step a football player takes. By doing so, this step-detection technology provides a valid measure of the player load at any given time during training and match.