by Sean Devlin, Front Rush
We are seeing more and more coaches using a GoPro for their existing team. If you are not familiar with the GoPro, it’s the camera strapped to an athlete’s arm, head, board, stick, etc. and made famous by extreme sport athletes (surfers, snowboarders, etc) so you can see the action from their perspective. Just google GoPro videos and you will be blown away. Many savvy coaches are using these low priced cameras to grab footage of their team and analyze the plays later. We’ve seen coaches put the camera on their player’s helmets (especially goalies) to see what’s going on from the athlete’s view. We’ve seen coaches hang GoPro’s from basketball nets to get a full court view of the action and we’ve see coaches set up stills to look at an athlete’s mechanics (think swings, throws, shots, and dives). The return is limitless and really up to the creativity of the coach.
Here’s what makes this all possible. The GoPro is small, light-weight, resilient, and waterproof. You can truly beat the heck out of them and they will keep on performing. The video quality is extremely high, it can take up to 4k video which is higher than your current tv can handle. You can also interact with it from your mobile device, there is an app where you can start and stop recording your GoPro even though it is 30 feet in the air or on a player’s helmet.
The price for a GoPro HERO3+, which is their latest and greatest, is $399.99. However, you still need to purchase memory cards (a 64 GB will be like 50 bucks) and accessories, like mounts, which can be another 30 bucks upward. So to get started, you’ll need a $500 budget, BUT in our opinion and in the opinion of the coaches we have chatted with, it is well worth it. The long term benefits are enormous. We are even playing around with a device that will move the GoPro to follow a particular athlete as they are on the field.
Check out the HERO3+ GoPro for yourself here and good luck!
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