What the 5-10-5 Really Tells Us About Change of Direction

When we test athletes, I’m not interested in collecting numbers just to say we tested them.

The number has to tell us something.

One comparison I’ve started looking at more closely is the relationship between an athlete’s 20-yard sprint and their 5-10-5 change-of-direction test.

Both tests cover 20 yards.

But they ask the athlete to solve two completely different problems.

In the 20-yard sprint, the goal is fairly simple: accelerate as quickly as possible and continue building speed.

In the 5-10-5, the athlete has to accelerate, stop that momentum, change direction 180 degrees, accelerate again, stop again, turn, and then accelerate through the finish.

That difference is where things become interesting.

A fast 5-10-5 doesn't always mean great change of direction

This is probably the biggest thing we need to understand when we look at change-of-direction testing.

If I have two athletes and one runs a faster 5-10-5, it is easy to assume that athlete changes direction better.

That isn't necessarily true.

Research from Nimphius and colleagues showed that total change-of-direction times can be strongly influenced by an athlete's linear sprint ability.

In their work using the 505 test, athletes who were faster in a straight line also tended to perform better in the change-of-direction test.

Once researchers accounted for linear sprint speed, the relationship changed considerably.

That is where the idea of a change-of-direction deficit becomes useful.

Instead of only asking how fast someone completed the test, we can ask:

How much time did the athlete lose when we added braking and directional changes?

That gives us a different way to look at performance.

Comparing the 20-yard sprint and the 5-10-5

A standard 5-10-5 covers 20 total yards.

The athlete travels five yards in one direction, ten yards back in the opposite direction, and then another five yards through the finish.

So from a practical standpoint, we can compare that performance with a 20-yard linear sprint.

The calculation is straightforward:

Change-of-direction deficit = 5-10-5 time − 20-yard sprint time

For example, if an athlete runs:

20-yard sprint: 3.10 seconds

5-10-5: 4.70 seconds

The athlete's change-of-direction deficit would be:

4.70 − 3.10 = 1.60 seconds

That 1.60 seconds represents the additional time required when we ask the athlete to brake, redirect their body and accelerate again compared with running the same total distance in a straight line.

Researchers have used the same general concept when comparing equal-distance linear sprinting and change-of-direction tests, including 20-meter sprint and Pro-Agility testing.

The important part is that we are comparing equal distances.

Why I like looking at the deficit

The 5-10-5 time gives us information.

The 20-yard sprint gives us information.

But looking at them together gives us more context.

Let's say we have an athlete who is extremely fast over 20 yards but has a relatively large drop-off when we put them into the 5-10-5.

That athlete may not need more acceleration work as the primary solution.

They may need to become better at controlling the speed they already have.

That could mean looking more closely at braking ability, body position, foot placement, eccentric force production and how efficiently they transition from deceleration back into acceleration.

Now take another athlete.

Maybe that player has a relatively small change-of-direction deficit but isn't particularly fast over 20 yards.

It would be easy to look at the small deficit and say they are great at changing direction.

But there is another possibility.

They may simply have less speed and momentum to control entering the turn.

That is why I wouldn't use COD deficit by itself.

It has to be viewed alongside the athlete's actual sprint performance.

Speed changes the problem

The faster an athlete is moving, the more momentum they have to manage before changing direction.

That matters.

An athlete running at a high velocity cannot instantly redirect themselves.

They first have to reduce the momentum traveling in one direction before producing force in another.

Research examining 180-degree change-of-direction tasks has shown that braking forces, braking impulses and the steps leading into the turn are important components of successful COD performance.

This is one of the reasons I often think about change of direction as having an engine and a braking system.

Acceleration is the engine.

Deceleration is the braking system.

You need both.

And in soccer, having a bigger engine without having the ability to control it isn't necessarily an advantage when the game requires constant acceleration, stopping and redirection.

This is also why deceleration deserves more attention

A lot of speed training still focuses heavily on acceleration.

How quickly can we get the athlete moving?

How much horizontal force can they produce?

What does their first step look like?

Those things matter.

But the 5-10-5 forces us to look at the other side of speed.

Can the athlete absorb and redirect the forces they create?

Before you can accelerate out of a 180-degree turn, you have to get yourself into a position where you can actually produce force in the new direction.

That means controlling momentum first.

The research around 180-degree COD mechanics consistently shows that braking strategy and force production leading into the directional change contribute to performance.

So when we see an athlete with good linear speed but a large COD deficit, one of the things I want to understand is what happens during that braking phase.

Not just what the stopwatch says.

What I would look for in an athlete profile

Instead of ranking athletes only by their 5-10-5 time, I would rather look at three numbers together:

20-yard sprint time

5-10-5 time

Change-of-direction deficit

Now we can start building a profile.

A player with fast linear speed and a relatively small deficit is showing good acceleration along with an ability to maintain more of that performance when direction changes are introduced.

A player with fast linear speed and a large deficit may have plenty of speed but struggle to manage and redirect it.

A slower athlete with a small deficit may be relatively efficient at changing direction compared with their own speed, but still need to improve acceleration.

And an athlete who is slower linearly and also has a large COD deficit probably has multiple qualities we need to address.

None of those conclusions should automatically become a training prescription.

But they give us a much better starting point.

The 5-10-5 is not an agility test

This is another distinction I think is important.

The 5-10-5 is predetermined.

The athlete already knows where they are going.

There is no opponent to read, no ball movement to recognize and no decision to make.

So technically we are measuring change-of-direction speed, not agility.

Agility includes perception and reaction to an external stimulus.

That matters for soccer because a player can be excellent in a planned 5-10-5 and still struggle to recognize and react to information during the game.

The physical qualities involved in changing direction are important, but they are only part of soccer agility.

One thing I would not do with this test

I would not create an arbitrary number and tell athletes:

"Under this percentage is good."

"Over this percentage is bad."

The research simply isn't clean enough for that.

COD deficit values are influenced by the test being used, the distance, athlete population, sport, age, sex, timing method, turning technique and whether the calculation is based on time or velocity.

Studies have also shown that COD deficit does not completely remove the influence of linear speed in every population or every type of change-of-direction test.

So I wouldn't treat the metric like a universal score.

I think it is much more useful as an individual tracking tool.

Establish the athlete's baseline.

Measure the 20-yard sprint.

Measure the 5-10-5.

Calculate the difference.

Train.

Then retest.

Now we can see whether the athlete actually improved their ability to change direction relative to their linear speed.

That is much more useful than simply saying:

"Your 5-10-5 improved."

Because now the next question becomes:

Why did it improve?

Did the athlete become faster?

Did they become better at braking?

Did they improve the turn?

Did they become better at re-accelerating?

Or did several things improve together?

That is what I'm ultimately trying to get from performance testing.

Not more numbers.

Better information about what the athlete actually needs.

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Research referenced

Nimphius, S., Callaghan, S. J., Spiteri, T., & Lockie, R. G. (2016). Change of direction deficit: A more isolated measure of change of direction performance than total 505 time. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 30(11), 3024–3032.

Dos'Santos, T., Thomas, C., Jones, P. A., & Comfort, P. (2017). Mechanical determinants of faster change of direction speed performance in male athletes. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 31(3), 696–705.

Freitas, T. T., et al. (2018). Change of direction deficit in national team rugby union players: Is there an influence of playing position? Sports, 7(1), 2.

Hernández-Davó, J. L., et al. (2021). Relationship between sprint, change of direction, jump, and hexagon test performance in young tennis players. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 20, 197–203.

Freitas, T. T., et al. (2022). Percentage-based change of direction deficit: A new approach to standardize time- and velocity-derived calculations. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 36(8), 2206–2211.

Fernandes, R., Bishop, C., Turner, A. N., Chavda, S., & Maloney, S. J. (2021). Train the engine or the brakes? Influence of momentum on the change of direction deficit. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 16(1), 90–96.