Reading step velocity, contact & flight time
What each spatiotemporal metric actually tells you about an athlete — and what to do with it.
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TrackStat captures the spatiotemporal parameters of a sprint: the timing and distance of every step. On their own they’re just numbers. The skill is reading them together to understand how an athlete is moving — and what to change.
The core metrics
| Metric | What it is | Units |
|---|---|---|
| Step length | Distance covered in one step | m |
| Contact time | Time the foot is on the ground | s |
| Flight time | Time airborne between steps | s |
| Step frequency | Steps per second | Hz |
| Step velocity | The result of length × frequency | m/s |
Step velocity is the headline
Step velocity is what wins races, and it’s the product of two things:
Step velocity = step length × step frequency
That simple relationship is the whole game. A faster athlete has either longer steps, quicker steps, or both. When you want to make someone faster, you’re really asking: which of those two do we have room to improve?
Contact and flight time tell you how
Two athletes can hit the same step velocity in very different ways:
- Short contact, longer flight — a bouncy, elastic sprinter applying force fast.
- Longer contact, shorter flight — more of a grinding, push-dominant pattern.
Neither is “wrong,” but the pattern tells you where to focus. Long ground-contact times at max velocity, for example, often point to a strength or stiffness limitation worth addressing in the gym.
Putting it to work
- Establish a baseline from clean footage.
- Look at the pattern, not just the single number.
- Pick the one lever with the most room — usually length or frequency.
- Re-measure after a training block and compare.
That last step is where TrackStat earns its place: because every analysis lands on the athlete’s profile, you can watch the trend across a whole season instead of guessing.