Quantifying acceleration and deceleration (or speed change work)

While most are comfortable with traditional velocity-based metrics, measuring speed change work (i.e. acceleration and deceleration) might be less familiar for some users. I thought it might be handy to post a couple of links to relevant guides in this area.

It goes without saying that changing speed is a key performance requirement for most athletes. For certain positions primarily operating in confined spaces, the athlete's capacity to repeatedly accelerate and decelerate is likely more relevant to performance than their capacity to run at high speed. Therefore, measuring 'speed change' work can provide useful information for load management and training prescription.

One option for measuring speed change work is threshold-based acceleration and deceleration efforts - you can read more about that here. The other option centres around acceleration load and acceleration density (you might've heard this described as 'change of pace' or 'average acceleration') - read more about that here. Both options have their benefits, and can be used alongside each other.

If you have any questions on quantifying speed change work after reading either of these guides, feel free to post them here. Similarly, for those who have experience using these parameters, please share any tips or suggestions!