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No Change = No Change: Why Timing Gates Are Obsolete and What Modern Coaching Demands

Written by
VueMotion
Published on
August 6, 2025
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For decades, coaches have relied on stopwatches and timing gates to measure performance. But here’s the truth: time alone doesn’t make athletes better, faster, and it certainly doesn’t make them safer.

Yes, timing systems give you a number. A snapshot. A moment in time. But they don’t tell you why that number is what it is. They don’t tell you how your athlete moved, what forces were involved, where the inefficiencies were, or if they’re at risk of injury.

In today’s era of sports science, that’s simply not good enough.

Welcome to the Movement Revolution

At the elite and semi-professional levels, the world is moving beyond time. The best teams are trading timing gates for intelligent systems that capture context—speed with movement quality, mechanics, asymmetries, and more.

Why? Because performance isn’t just about how fast an athlete runs between two points. It’s about how they run—on one leg at a time, under load, while absorbing and producing forces. If you don’t know how they’re moving, you’re coaching in the dark.

Video is Everywhere. DataShould Be Too.

Today, every coach has a smartphone with slow-motion video, high frame rates, and 4K resolution. But video alone isn’t enough anymore.

That’s where platforms like VueMotion come in—using computer vision and AI to transform simple video into thousands of data points that show how athletes move, not just how fast.

Coaches can now see what used to be invisible to the naked eye:asymmetries, inefficient ground contact, poor force application, and subtle differences between left vs right. VueMotion turns this complex data into clear visuals, kinograms, and actionable reports that guide performance and reduce injury risk.

Timing Gates RaiseQuestions. VueMotion Gives You Answers.

Athletes care about their times, no question. Run slower and they ask why. Run faster and they ask how. But with timing gates alone, there’s no answer. It’s just a number.

That’s not just frustrating for athletes—it can be counterproductive.Focusing on time without understanding the how can lead to flawed training cues, bad habits, and even injury.

VueMotion answers those questions by showing what actually happened during the run—and how to fix it.

 

Modern Athletes WantMore—and Deserve More

Today’s athletes are visual. They're data-hungry. They’ve grown up watching slow-motion video, analyzing elite technique, and expecting proof—not just opinions.

When they see a visual overlay of their own mechanics, angles, and step patterns, they get it. They buy in. They improve faster.

Elite sprinters like Josephus Lyles, Britton Wilson, Trayvon Bromell, and the fastest youth sprinter on the planet, Gout Gout, all share one thing in common: they understand how they need to move to win. That understanding isn’tmagic—it’s analysis, data, and elite coaching tools combined.

The Cost of Guessing Is TooHigh

As a coach, our job is performance and protection. If we are guessing how our athletes move, we’re risking their health and limiting their potential.

Timing gates don’t show the mechanics. they don’t show the imbalance that’s slowing limiting potential. They don’t tell us if a cue is actually working.

VueMotion does.

 

Make the Shift: Coach withPurpose, focus on movement quality not the time

If you coach, rehab, or develop athletes, now is the time to make the leap. VueMotion takes raw smartphone video and gives you:

  • Augmented reality overlays
  • Kinograms with joint angles
  • Ground contact analysis
  • Step quality scores
  • Split times and speed metrics
  • Asymmetry detection
  • Progress tracking over time

All this gives you the edge you need to coach smarter, prove your impact and get athletes to peak performance- faster and safer.

Final Thought: Time Is aResult, Not a Solution

Research shows it takes 8–12 weeks of continuous practice for a skill of movement pattern to become more permanent. If you're chasing faster times without improving movement patterns, you're just reinforcing inefficiencies.Practice makes permanent, only efficient practice makes perfect.

It’s time to stop chasing time and start building resilient, powerful, technically sound athletes.