I recently had the privilege of conducting fitness testing with the Accrington Stanley First Team, a fantastic opportunity to apply my sports science knowledge within a professional football environment.
Working alongside the club’s performance staff, the session focused on evaluating players’ sprint performance using SmartSpeed timing gates by VALD Performance. These high-precision wireless gates are designed to measure sprint times, acceleration, and split intervals—key indicators of physical performance in elite athletes.
The setup involved placing the gates at strategic intervals across the pitch to track each player’s speed and acceleration profile over various distances. This kind of data plays a crucial role in understanding an athlete’s current condition, monitoring progress, and informing training decisions throughout the season.
It was an invaluable experience not only to use advanced performance testing tools, but also to collaborate within a professional football environment, supporting the physical development of top-level athletes
https://www.accringtonstanley.co.uk/news/2025/july/12/starting-xi-blackburn-rovers-h