Video Analysis for Kickers: How to Film Yourself and Actually Learn Something
Most kickers who film themselves film the wrong angle, watch it once, notice nothing, and conclude that video analysis is overrated. The camera was never the problem.
Here is why this matters more for kickers than for almost any other position. The faults that ruin kicks — plant foot position, toe direction, approach path, a shortening follow-through — are all invisible from the inside. You cannot feel them. And most kickers train alone, with nobody qualified watching.
That combination means film is not a nice extra. It is the only feedback mechanism available to you for the majority of what actually goes wrong.
But it only works if you do it properly, and “properly” mostly means one thing: the angle. Get that right and faults become obvious in a single session. Get it wrong and you can film for a year and learn nothing at all.
📋 What’s in this guide
Why Film Beats Feel
Three specific reasons, and they compound.
Feel is unreliable exactly where it matters. At the moment your plant foot lands you are moving at speed, focused on a ball, about to swing a leg. Under those conditions your sense of where your foot went and which way it pointed is close to useless. Film does not have that limitation.
Outcome lies to you. A kick can go straight through the middle with a poor plant, and a technically excellent kick can miss because of wind. Judging your mechanics by whether it went in means learning from a signal that is only loosely connected to what you did.
Memory is worse than you think. Trying to recall what your last ten kicks had in common is not a reliable process. Film is a record, and a record lets you compare this week against six weeks ago rather than against an impression.
If you train alone, film is not a supplement to coaching. It is your coaching.
The Angles and What Each Shows
This is the section that determines whether any of this works.
| Angle | Camera position | What it reveals | What it hides | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Directly behind | On the target line, behind the kicker | Plant position, toe direction, approach path, hip rotation | Contact point on the ball, body lean | Highest — start here |
| Side on | Perpendicular, level with the ball | Contact point, trajectory, follow-through height, body lean | Direction faults entirely | Second |
| Front on | Beyond the ball, facing the kicker | Upper body, head position, arm action | Plant depth, approach path | Occasional |
| Low and behind | Ground level, behind the plant | Plant foot detail, ankle lock, foot behaviour after landing | Overall shape and balance | For plant work specifically |
| Elevated behind | Raised, on the target line | Approach curve, full geometry | Fine detail at the plant | Useful if you can get height |
If you only ever use one angle, use directly behind. It shows the four things behind most missed kicks — where your plant lands, which way its toes point, whether your approach curved, and how your hips rotate. No other angle shows all four, and the faults it reveals are the ones you genuinely cannot feel.
Side on is the useful second. It answers the trajectory questions: where on the ball you made contact, whether the follow-through is complete, whether you are leaning back. Kickers with a height problem rather than a direction problem should film from the side.
💡 Getting the “directly behind” angle actually right matters more than the camera. It must be on the line from your start position through the ball to the target — not behind where you stand, and not behind the ball. Off by a few feet and plant depth becomes impossible to judge and toe direction becomes ambiguous. Mark the camera position and reproduce it exactly every session, or your comparisons across weeks are meaningless.
Setting Up Properly
- Mark the camera position. A cone or a peg. Same spot, every session, forever. Comparability is the entire point.
- Get the height right. Roughly knee to waist height for the behind angle. Ground level exaggerates; head height flattens the geometry.
- Use slow motion if your phone has it. Most do. A kick takes about a third of a second — at normal speed you are looking at three or four usable frames.
- Frame the whole approach. From your start position through the follow-through. Cropping to just the strike loses the steps, which is where drift begins.
- Film five reps minimum. One kick tells you nothing. You need to know whether a fault is constant or intermittent, because those have different fixes.
- Say the conditions out loud at the start. Date, surface, wind, what you are working on. Ten seconds now saves you guessing in three months.
- Check the first clip before you carry on. Nothing worse than a full session filmed with the ball out of frame.
What to Actually Look At
Watching film without a checklist produces the classic outcome: you watch yourself kick, think “that looked fine”, and learn nothing.
Look at one thing per viewing. Watch all five kicks for plant position. Then watch all five again for toe direction. Then again for approach path. Trying to see everything at once means seeing nothing.
Compare kicks against each other, not against a professional. The useful question is “what is different between my good ones and my bad ones”, not “how do I differ from someone on television”. You will differ in a hundred ways, most of them irrelevant.
Pause, do not scrub. Faults live in single frames. Playing at normal speed and forming an impression is how kickers conclude everything looks fine.
Look for consistency before correctness. A plant that is slightly unusual but identical every time is a much smaller problem than one that varies by four inches between reps. Variability is often the real fault.
⚠️ Do not fix more than one thing at a time. Film is very good at surfacing faults, and a first proper session often reveals four or five. Attempting to correct them simultaneously reliably produces a kicker who is worse at all of them. Pick the one with the largest consequence — usually something at the plant — and leave the rest for later.
The Four Frames That Matter
Almost everything diagnosable lives in four moments.
| Frame | When | What to check | Common fault |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start position | Before the first step | Distance and angle from the ball, stance | Steps drifted from measured position |
| Penultimate step | Second-to-last ground contact | Balance, speed, body position | Rushing, falling forward |
| Plant landing | Plant foot touches down | Position, depth, toe direction, firmness | The majority of all faults |
| Contact | Foot meets ball | Contact point, ankle lock, head position | Head lifting early, soft ankle |
| Follow-through | Peak of the finish | Height, balance, direction of finish | Shortened swing, off-balance landing |
Start with the plant landing frame. If you look at one frame in one session, that is the one. Our plant foot guide covers exactly what you are looking for once you have paused there.
The penultimate step frame is the underrated one. A kicker who is rushing or falling forward two steps out cannot possibly plant well, and the fault is far easier to fix there than at the plant itself.
Building a Reference Library
The compounding benefit, and the reason to be organised about it.
Keep your best kicks. When something feels right and the ball goes exactly where you wanted, save that clip and label it. That is your personal reference — far more useful than anyone else’s technique, because it is achievable by definition.
Film at fixed intervals. Once a fortnight in season, once a month out of it. Consistent intervals make change visible; random filming makes it invisible.
Label properly. Date, surface, conditions, what you were working on. “IMG_4471” tells you nothing in April.
Re-film after a correction. Two weeks after starting a change, film the same angle and compare. This is the only honest answer to whether the correction is holding, and it is the step almost everyone skips.
Keep a slump reference. When kicking goes wrong mid-season, the fastest diagnosis available is comparing today’s film against film from when it was going well. Kickers with a library find drift in ten minutes; kickers without one spend three weeks guessing.
Equipment
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Phone Tripod
The Entire Requirement
You do not need a camera — your phone shoots slow motion that is entirely adequate. What you need is something to hold it at a consistent height and position so your comparisons across weeks actually mean something.
✅ What’s good
- Consistent angle week to week
- No helper needed
- Cheap and portable
- Works on any ground
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Flexible legs need stable footing
- Can blow over in strong wind
👤 Best for: Every kicker training alone. This plus a phone is the whole setup.
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Extendable Tripod
If You Want the Elevated Angle
A taller tripod lets you shoot the raised behind-view, which shows approach curvature and overall geometry more clearly than ground level. Useful once you have the basic angle mastered.
✅ What’s good
- Better view of the approach path
- Adjustable for both angles
- More stable than flexible mounts
- Reusable for team filming
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Bulkier to transport
- More expensive than a mini tripod
👤 Best for: Kickers diagnosing a curved approach, or filming for a coach.
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Phone Mount Clamp
Attaching to Fences and Posts
A clamp mount fixes your phone to a fence, goalpost or net frame, which is often steadier than a tripod on uneven grass and puts the camera at a useful height for free.
✅ What’s good
- Very stable once attached
- Free elevation
- Small and light
- Cheap
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Needs something to clamp to
- Not usable in open fields
👤 Best for: Kickers practising near a fence line or with a net frame available.
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Training Cones
Marking the Camera Position
The value of film is comparability, and comparability requires the camera in the same place every time. A cone marking your camera spot is the difference between a reference library and a folder of unrelated clips.
✅ What’s good
- Makes weekly comparison valid
- Also the key plant drill tool
- Packs flat
- Trivially cheap
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Blow around in wind
- Need collecting
👤 Best for: Anyone intending to compare film across weeks rather than watch it once.
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Portable Power Bank
Slow Motion Drains Batteries
Slow-motion video is demanding on a phone, and a long session with repeated filming can leave you without a phone for the drive home. A small power bank removes the problem entirely.
✅ What’s good
- Prevents sessions cut short
- Small and light
- Useful well beyond kicking
- Inexpensive
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Needs charging itself
- One more item to remember
👤 Best for: Kickers filming full sessions in slow motion, especially in cold weather.
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Training Log
Pairing Notes With Film
Film shows what happened; notes record what you were trying and how it felt. Together they turn a folder of clips into a record you can actually reason about months later.
✅ What’s good
- Gives film clips context
- Reveals patterns over a season
- Cheap and simple
- Useful when consulting a coach
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Requires consistency
- Easy to abandon
👤 Best for: Kickers building a genuine reference library rather than random footage.
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Sending Film to a Coach
Whether it is a camp coach, an online service or a knowledgeable teammate, how you send it decides how useful the reply is.
Send the behind angle first. It answers more questions than any other view. Add side-on if trajectory is the issue.
Send several kicks, not one. A single clip cannot show whether a fault is consistent, and that distinction changes the advice completely.
Include good ones as well as bad ones. The most useful comparison a coach can make is between your working kicks and your failing ones.
Ask a specific question. “Why does my plant drift closed on longer kicks?” gets a real answer. “Any thoughts?” gets a generic one.
State the conditions. Surface, wind, what you were working on, how long you have been kicking that session. Context changes interpretation.
Do not edit it to look good. Sending your best three kicks gets you feedback on a version of you that does not exist during games.
Common Mistakes
❌ 1. Filming from the wrong angle
Side-on for a direction problem, or an off-line “behind” angle, hides the fault entirely.
✅ Fix: Directly behind on the target line, marked with a cone, every time.
❌ 2. Watching at normal speed
A kick lasts about a third of a second. At full speed you form an impression, not a diagnosis.
✅ Fix: Slow motion, and pause on specific frames.
❌ 3. Looking for everything at once
Trying to assess plant, path, contact and finish in one viewing produces no useful observation.
✅ Fix: One variable per viewing, across all five reps.
❌ 4. Comparing yourself to a professional
You differ in a hundred ways, almost all irrelevant to your actual fault.
✅ Fix: Compare your bad kicks against your own good ones.
❌ 5. Moving the camera each session
Different position means different apparent geometry, so week-to-week comparison becomes meaningless.
✅ Fix: Mark the spot and reproduce it exactly.
❌ 6. Filming once and never again
The value compounds through comparison. A single session is a snapshot with nothing to compare it to.
✅ Fix: Fixed intervals — fortnightly in season.
❌ 7. Never re-filming after a correction
Without a follow-up you have no idea whether the change held or you drifted straight back.
✅ Fix: Same angle, two weeks later, direct comparison.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best angle to film a kicker from?
Directly behind, on the line running from your start position through the ball to the target, at roughly knee to waist height. It shows plant position, toe direction, approach path and hip rotation all at once.
Those four things account for the majority of missed kicks, and no other angle shows them together. Side-on is the useful second angle for trajectory questions.
Do I need a proper camera?
No. A modern phone with slow-motion recording is entirely adequate for kicking analysis, and the limiting factor is almost never image quality.
What you do need is something to hold it at a consistent position — a cheap tripod and a cone marking its spot matter far more than the camera itself.
How often should I film myself kicking?
Roughly fortnightly during the season and monthly out of it, at fixed intervals rather than randomly, plus a dedicated follow-up two weeks after starting any correction.
Consistent intervals are what make change visible. Filming whenever you happen to think of it produces a folder of clips you cannot compare.
What should I look for in the footage?
Start at the frame where your plant foot lands and check toe direction, then depth relative to the ball, then the lateral gap. That single frame contains most of what goes wrong.
Watch one variable at a time across all your reps, and look for consistency before correctness — a plant that varies between kicks is often a bigger problem than one that is slightly unusual but repeatable.
Why does my kicking look fine on video when I keep missing?
Usually because of the angle or the speed. A side-on view hides direction faults completely, and watching at normal speed gives you an impression rather than a diagnosis.
Film from directly behind, in slow motion, and pause at the plant landing frame. Faults that were invisible at full speed become obvious.
Should I send film to a coach?
Yes, and many coaches will answer a short, specific question if you make it easy for them. Send the behind angle, several kicks including good ones, the conditions, and one clear question.
Avoid sending an edited selection of your best kicks — you will get feedback on a version of yourself that does not appear in games.
Filming Checklist
- Camera directly behind, on the target line
- Camera position marked with a cone and reproduced every session
- Height set at knee to waist level
- Slow motion enabled
- Whole approach in frame, start position to follow-through
- Minimum five kicks recorded
- Conditions stated aloud at the start of the clip
- First clip checked before continuing the session
- One variable reviewed per viewing
- Paused at the plant landing frame first
- Bad kicks compared against your own good kicks
- Only one correction worked on at a time
- Best kicks saved and labelled as personal reference
- Re-filmed two weeks after starting any correction
- Clips labelled with date, surface and focus
The bottom line: if you train alone, film is your coach. Put the camera directly behind you on the target line, mark the spot so you can reproduce it, shoot slow motion, and pause at the frame your plant foot lands. Then look at one thing at a time, compare your bad kicks against your own good ones, and change only one thing. Kickers who do this find faults in a session that they would otherwise have practised for two seasons.
Keep Going
❌ Common MistakesFaults and their causes
🏠 Home PracticeTraining alone effectively
🏕️ Kicking CampsGetting qualified eyes on you
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