Sprint metrics
Split times, the flying 10 m, peak velocity, agility totals, the 10 m approach and COD deficit: what each number means and how Metric Sprint measures it.
Run a 20 m sprint with a 10 m split and Metric Sprint hands back two split times and a flying 10 m. You also get your peak velocity and a speed curve. An agility test gives you the total, each leg, and your speed through every turn. Metric Sprint reads all of it from how your body crosses the gates you placed.
Split times
Each split is the time from the 0 m line to a gate. The splits are cumulative: 0–5 m, 0–10 m, 0–15 m, 0–20 m and 0–30 m. Lower times are better.
Each distance has its own colour, and Metric Sprint uses the same colour for it on every chart, pill and leaderboard.
- 0–5 m — your start and first steps. This split is the most sensitive to how you come off the line.
- 0–10 m — acceleration proper.
- 0–15 m — late acceleration. It suits a court or an indoor space too short for 20 m.
- 0–20 m — acceleration carried into the beginning of your top-end speed.
- 0–30 m — the longest split. Tick the 10 m and 20 m splits to see where the time goes.
Compare your times
Check the timing method before you compare a time with any table. Start procedure and timing device alone can change a short sprint time more than years of training (Haugen & Buchheit, 2016).
Metric Sprint starts the clock on your first movement. Most of the photocell studies below start it 0.5 m ahead of the athlete, who is already moving when the clock starts. Starting 1.0 m behind the first photocell instead of 0.3 m cut 5 m times from 1.09 s to 0.98 s (Altmann et al., 2015). Expect your Metric Sprint times to read slower than a photocell table for the same run.
Metric’s shorthand is 1-2-3. Metric rounded it from the photocell table below, for trained adult men in football and rugby:
- 5 m — about 1 s.
- 10 m — under 2 s.
- 20 m — about 3 s.
Timed from first movement
Grimbert Le Mer et al. filmed 17 elite under-21 rugby union players from a Top 14 club (Grimbert Le Mer et al., 2026). They started the clock on first movement, as Metric Sprint does.
| Group | 0–5 m | 0–10 m | 0–15 m | 0–20 m | 0–30 m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elite under-21 rugby union, all 17 players | 1.32 s | 2.09 s | 2.77 s | 3.43 s | 4.70 s |
Each value is the average of the three test sessions in the paper, timed from video. The backs ran 20 m in 3.34 s and the forwards in 3.49 s. The players had an average body mass of 99 kg.
Timed from a photocell
In these studies the athlete started 0.5 m behind the first photocell, unless the notes say otherwise. Every row is men, except the last.
| Group | 0–5 m | 0–10 m | 0–20 m | 0–30 m |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Professional football, Serbian top division, leading club | 1.62 s | 2.88 s | 4.02 s | |
| Professional football, Brazil, national level | 1.06 s | 1.77 s | 3.02 s | |
| Amateur rugby union, senior backs | 1.69 s | 2.98 s | 4.19 s | |
| Amateur rugby union, senior forwards | 1.75 s | 3.09 s | 4.39 s | |
| Greek second- to fourth-tier football, ages 18–35, median | 1.79–1.87 s | 3.09–3.21 s | ||
| Professional football, Brazil, national level, women | 1.19 s | 2.02 s | 3.42 s |
- Serbian top division — 29 players from the leading club in the Serbian Super League. The clock started when the athlete broke the beam at the start line (Radakovic et al., 2025).
- Brazil — 18 senior men and 24 senior women from national-level clubs, on an indoor track. The paper reports mean speeds, which Metric converted to times (Loturco et al., 2025).
- Amateur rugby union — 49 senior players from Argentina and Spain, on artificial turf (Zabaloy et al., 2021).
- Greek football — 474 players from second- to fourth-tier clubs. The range covers the median of each adult age group (Nikolaidis et al., 2016).
In the Brazilian study, the women’s sprint speed sat 11–12% below the men’s over 5 m, 10 m and 20 m.
Juniors run slower until mid-adolescence. In the Greek study, 20 m times improved each year up to about age 15, then held level from 16 to 35. The under-14 median was 3.50 s.
The fastest 20 m on record at the AFL Draft Combine is 2.75 s, by Joel Wilkinson (AFL). The combine times the 20 m on electronic gates from a standing start (Larkin et al., 2021).
Surface and footwear move the numbers too. Grass, dusty timber, rubber and concrete each change sprint times, and they change turns on agility tests even more. A time that looks slow against these tables can be a good run on wet grass in trainers. If you test in more than one place, note the surface and compare like with like.
Flying 10 m
The flying 10 m is a 10 m segment that you enter already at speed. Metric Sprint takes it from the 10–20 m or the 20–30 m segment of a run, whichever is faster.
To get a flying 10 m, tick the 10 m split on a 20 m sprint. On a 30 m sprint, tick the 10 m and 20 m splits.
Peak velocity
Peak velocity is the fastest your centre of mass travels at any point in the run, in metres per second (m/s).
A set of timing gates cannot give you this number. Gates report the average speed between two fixed points, which hides where your speed peaked. Metric Sprint tracks you through the whole run, so it reports your velocity all the way down the lane.
Peak velocity is higher the longer a sprint is. Your progress chart splits it by run distance. It shows 10 m and 20 m by default, and adds 15 m and 30 m once you have run them.
Check where the peak falls. On a well-run sprint it lands at the final cone, or very close to it. A peak well before the last cone means you slowed before the finish.
The acceleration curve
On a linear sprint, the summary plots speed against distance. You get the shape of the run rather than a single number. The curve shows how sharply you built speed, where it flattened, and whether you were still climbing at the last gate.
On an agility test, the same card plots speed against time and marks each turn. The dips in the trace are your turns. A deep, wide dip means you spent a long time slow. A narrow dip means you got in and out fast.
On the T-Test, the Modified T-Test and Lane Agility, the athlete also moves towards and away from the camera. Metric Sprint works out that depth from the camera height you set, so set it carefully. See Agility tests.
Agility totals
Every agility test reports a total, and Metric Sprint tracks that total as your personal best for the test.
- 5-0-5 (Stationary) — the 10 m out-and-back from a standing start, with each 5 m leg.
- 5-0-5 (Flying) — the 10 m out-and-back from the 10 m gate, after a timed 10 m approach.
- 5-10-5 Pro Agility — all 20 m, with each leg.
- T-Test, Modified T-Test — the whole course, from the first movement at D to the return across D.
- Lane Agility — both laps around the key, with Lap 1 and Lap 2 split at the reversal.
Stationary or flying 5-0-5
The two 5-0-5 tests are not comparable. The traditional 5-0-5 uses a 10 m run-in and times only the 5 m out and the 5 m back. That is the 5-0-5 (Flying) layout. The 5-0-5 (Stationary) starts on the 0 m line, so it includes the acceleration and always reads slower.
Most published 5-0-5 norms come from the traditional version. Compare a stationary total against your own history and your roster, not against a flying-start table.
The largest normative review of the 5-0-5 pooled 50 studies across 11 sports (Ryan, Uthoff, McKenzie & Cronin, 2022). Males averaged 6.03% faster than females. Elite males were 7.78% faster than sub-elite and novice males. Sub-elite females were 3.30% faster than novice females. Use those gaps to judge a difference inside your roster. For absolute times, find reference values matched to your sport, sex and level.
For T-Test, Modified T-Test and Lane Agility references, see Agility tests.
10 m approach and COD deficit
The 5-0-5 (Flying) gives you two more numbers from the same run.
- 10 m approach — the time from your first movement to the 10 m gate. It has its own personal best, separate from your linear 0–10 m best. You pace that 10 m for the turn.
- COD deficit — your 5-0-5 time minus your 10 m approach time from the same run. Lower is better.
A fast athlete can post a good 5-0-5 time on speed alone, while the turn itself is slow. The COD deficit takes the speed out and leaves the cost of the turn (Nimphius, Callaghan, Spiteri & Lockie, 2016).
To chart it, open the dropdown on the performance chart and pick COD deficit. COD deficit % shows the same gap as a share of the 10 m approach.
Related
- Sprint analytics covers contact time, stride length, cadence and sprint mechanics.
- Agility turns covers how Metric Sprint judges those turns.
- Reading your sprint data covers personal bests, trends and history.