The human eye lies. Video doesn’t.
That’s the realization many coaches have admitted to over the years. Today, with affordable cameras recording at 500fps and 8K playback, that’s never been more true.
But the dilemma facing many coaches these days isn’t a reluctance to embrace the latest technology, it’s a hesitation that the learning curve is too steep.
This article recounts several coaches who have admittedly struggled with emerging technology in the past, but have adopted and leveraged Onform to enhance their coaching.
This tech isn’t about telling you how to coach. It’s a microscope that lets you prove to your athletes what your gut already knows.
Veteran Baseball Coach Andy Weissman: ‘The Eyes Lie Terribly’
For Andy Weissman, a 41-year baseball coaching veteran, platforms like Onform seemed too complex at first, but he quickly realized how his reliance on his own eyes was challenged by the precision of modern video.
“I’ve been around this a long time, and I’ve been around really great coaches who have taught my eyes how to see, but I can’t tell you why your arm was late. When I put you on video, I can show you.”
Weissman admits that the eyes can “lie terribly,” which could lead to bad advice, or even worse, misinformed evaluations of athletes.
Primarily working with top youth players in Poland, the slow-motion video and frame-by-frame comparisons Onform provides allows Weissman to dissect swings and throws with precision to properly assess his players.
“I had an athlete that, when I watched him swing at regular speed I thought, ‘Whoa, I’m really happy, look at what you’re doing.’ Then we slowed it down, and I said, ‘Oh, geez, you have so long to go.'”
Weissman has been using Onform daily with his athletes since Summer 2025. While he hasn’t mastered the platform, the features he’s embraced have made a noticeable impact on his approach to coaching and the performance of his athletes.
The technology isn’t just a gadget. It has fundamentally altered his effectiveness as a teacher.
“It’s made me a much better coach,” he said. “Onform is my teaching tool. I need good software where I can say, ‘You’re not hitting it well because your bat is doing this.’ Without video, you can’t do that. I can touch them, I can move them, I can talk to them, but they can’t feel it because they don’t know when it feels right. Seeing it almost helps them feel it.”
“I’ve been around this a long time, and I’ve been around really great coaches who have taught my eyes how to see, but I can’t tell you why your arm was late. When I put you on video, I can show you.”
Track & Field Coach Brian Bedard: Cloud Storage and Time Management
Brian Bedard is the head track and field coach at Colorado State University. Known for his ability to produce national champion throwers — including Mostafa Hassan and Mya Lesnar — Bedard has been using Onform for two years, recording approximately 17,000 videos of his throwers alone.
For years, Bedard used Coach’s Eye, a now defunct video analysis software that he called cumbersome and time consuming.
“That was such a memory suck on any device, and it was just hard to manage,” he said.
With Onform, Bedard appreciates the automatic cloud backup storage and the organization the platform provides, where every athlete’s videos and feedback are individually assigned.
“From a time-management standpoint, it’s extremely effective,” he said. “I’m a head coach that also coaches a highly technical event area, so time management is really important to me. It’s just so easy to bounce back and forth between athletes, analyze video and send that to them.”
Bedard is starting to utilize the two-camera setup for analyzing throws, giving him an “extra set of eyes” and added angles to diagnose the difference between good and great throws.
“I’m not the most technically sophisticated guy, but Onform makes it dummy proof for me,” Bedard said. “I had it up and running in no time. They’ve really streamlined everything. So if it’s a bad experience from the past that’s holding a coach back, I just think that they are missing the boat.”
“I’m a head coach that also coaches a highly technical event area, so time management is really important to me.”
Studies Show Video Improves Performance and Coaching
Don’t just take Weissman and Bedard’s word for it. There are several peer-reviewed research articles that highlight the impact video analysis has on athletic performance.
A 2023 paper published in Sports Medicine compared different forms of feedback (verbal vs. visual) on acute performance metrics. Researchers found that visual feedback, including seeing velocity numbers or video replays, had a statistically greater effect on acute performance than verbal feedback alone.
But video analysis is not just for athletes. It is a powerful tool for improving the effectiveness of the coaches themselves.
A 2023 study published in Reflective Practice explored how coaches use video feedback combined with AI analytics to reflect on their own coaching behaviors.
Video allowed coaches to catch teaching moments they missed in real-time. Coaches who reviewed their own sessions adjusted their communication styles, reduced negative behaviors, and improved their instructional clarity.
Legendary Golf Coaches Who Have Embraced Onform
Both Jim McLean and Phil Kenyon are regarded as leaders within their respective areas of golf instruction.
McLean for pioneering biomechanics within golf coaching with his revolutionary X Factor swing concept and for founding the Jim McLean Golf School, regarded as one of the best in the world.
Kenyon is a renowned putting coach credited for the short-game improvement of Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 ranked professional golfer.
Both coaches have long incorporated video analysis and other emerging technologies into their coaching — from the early days of bulky video cameras and VHS tapes to the seamless and frictionless experience of using Onform on a phone or iPad.
“The ability to record a stroke and then play it back again and again is invaluable,” Kenyon said. “It allows us to look at the minutiae of how the body and the putter is moving.”
For McLean, who is 75, analyzing students today is so much easier and more efficient thanks to platforms like Onform.
“I’ve always embraced video analysis as part of my instruction, but it used to be so time-consuming and required a lot of equipment to make it happen,” McLean said. “Now, it’s just moved the ball so far forward.”