Redefining Movement Intensity: The New Standard for Measuring Performance in Multidirectional Sports

Athletes feel it. Physics proves it. ADI measures it—and applies it.

For years, the predominant measure of physical intensity in sport has been speed. But in the world of multidirectional sports—football, basketball, rugby, AFL, hockey, and beyond—speed alone doesn’t capture the true physical demands placed on elite athletes.

The Limits of Linear Thinking

Traditional tracking systems emphasize speed-based metrics: total distance, high-speed running, metres per minute. These are useful but incomplete. Many of the most intense actions that define games—rapid cuts, powerful arcing decelerations, explosive changes of direction—occur at low speeds. They're high in mechanical power, not speed.

In cycling, athletes and coaches rely on power traces to understand output. That same shift is overdue in field and court sports. ADI redefines intensity by making power, not speed, the foundational metric for understanding athlete load and performance.

The Hidden Intensity of Direction Change

Every time an athlete plants and cuts, they generate acceleration. The same sensation you feel turning sharply in a car at a constant speed is happening constantly on the field. Athletes feel it. Physics proves it. ADI captures it.

We may think all changes of direction fall into a single category, but ADI goes deeper. Sharp directional changes and curvilinear movements are distinct biomechanical events, each with their own load profiles and injury risks. So, we separate them.

From research by Filter et al., we know that 85% of sprints in football are non-linear. These curvilinear movements demand specific adaptations from the pelvic and lower limb musculature, particularly at high intensities. Failing to detect and measure these movements means ignoring the true performance characteristics of most high-speed actions in football and other multidirectional sports, with potential far-reaching implications for hamstring injury risk & rehabilitation.

Better Data = Smarter Preparation

When ADI detects and analyzes all on-field maneuvers—linear and multidirectional—it allows coaches to rethink drill design. Rather than targeting speed in isolation, training can reflect positional match demands, where deceleration, acceleration, sprinting, and direction change occur simultaneously, not in isolation.

In elite sport, decelerating into a direction change while beginning a reacceleration is the norm, not the exception. These overlapping actions require more advanced analysis than what traditional systems can provide.

Hardware Agnostic. Practitioner First.

One of ADI’s core advantages is hardware flexibility. Whether your organization uses GPS, LPS, or optical tracking, ADI processes and analyzes all data consistently, allowing you to maintain continuity in your longitudinal datasets and scale best practices across environments and teams.

While ADI’s system is technically sophisticated, it’s designed for real-world application. Our metric terminology, analysis outputs, and visualization tools have been honed in collaboration with elite practitioners, making integration into your existing reporting systems simple and intuitive.

Solving Common Practitioner Problems

Busy high-performance teams face persistent challenges:

• Fragmented data when switching between tracking systems

• Inconsistent load monitoring due to oversimplified metrics

• Unclear links between training and match performance

• Reactive rather than proactive rehab progressions

ADI addresses these head-on—by delivering deeper metrics, smoother workflows, and cleaner longitudinal comparisons.

The Shift Has Already Begun

Leading clubs and federations are already implementing ADI’s multidirectional load monitoring frameworks. The feedback is clear: It’s time to stop relying solely on linear metrics in multidirectional sports.

Your athletes are changing direction, curving through space, generating power, and absorbing load in complex ways every day. ADI ensures you’re not just tracking what’s easy to measure—you’re measuring what matters.

Ready to redefine intensity in your environment? Get in touch to see how ADI can elevate your athlete monitoring and performance systems—no matter what tracking device you use. [https://www.adi-data.co/]