Radar Charts for Athletes: How to Read, Build and Use Them

A radar chart turns several test results or match stats into one shape, so you can see an athlete’s strengths and gaps at a glance. It works best when each axis shows a percentile rank against a sensible peer group, the axes are in a fixed order, and the chart is compared with itself over time rather than only with other players. This guide shows how to do all three.

TL;DR

• A radar chart plots each metric on its own axis from a shared centre. The polygon you get shows where an athlete is strong and where there is room to grow.
• Convert raw scores to percentile ranks or z-scores first, so every axis means the same thing: how this athlete compares with a defined group.
• Keep axis order, scale and comparison group identical every time you chart. Otherwise the shape changes without the athlete changing.
• With youth athletes, growth spurts and birth timing move results around. Read a chart as a snapshot and look at the trend across several testing windows.
• Use the chart to start a conversation about two or three priorities, not to rank children.

Table of Contents

• What a radar chart shows about an athlete
• How to read the axes, scores and shape
• Why axis order and scale change what you see
• Which measures belong on an athlete radar chart
• Percentile ranks: giving every axis the same meaning
• Comparing athletes and tracking progress fairly
• Reading charts for youth athletes
• Turning the chart into a development plan
• Put athlete profiles to work in your club
• FAQ
• Sources

What a radar chart shows about an athlete

A radar chart (also called a spider or web chart) plots several performance metrics on axes that radiate from a central point. The further a point sits from the centre, the higher the performance on that metric. Join the points and you get a polygon. A round, large polygon suggests a balanced, strong profile. A lopsided one points to a standout quality and a gap.

That is why radar charts are popular in sport. One image can hold sprint speed, agility, jump power, endurance and a technical score. A parent or athlete who would never read a spreadsheet can read a shape.

A coach looking at a chart should ask three questions:

1. Which axes reach furthest out? These are the athlete’s current strengths.
2. Which axes sit closest to the centre? These are the candidates for a development focus.
3. How balanced is the shape for this athlete’s position or role? A goalkeeper, a fast bowler and a point guard should not have the same ideal shape.

The Golf Fitness Association of America makes a point worth keeping in mind. What sets coaches apart is how they use the results of an assessment, and one of the commonest mistakes is looking at too much too soon. Prioritising a few limitations matters more than listing everything.

How to read the axes, scores and shape

Before you read the shape, read the key. Every good athlete radar chart answers four things:

• What does the centre mean? Usually the lowest value on the scale.
• What does the outer ring mean? The highest value, or the 100th percentile.
• What is the reference line? Many charts include an average ring. In the Baseball Canada data guide for a prospect camp, a dashed line marks average performance, so anything beyond it is better than average.
• Which direction is “good”? For timed tests, a lower number is better. The same guide notes that a strong sprint shows as a dot far from the centre, even though it is a fast, low time. The axis has been flipped so that outward always means better. Check that your chart does this.

Read the shape in context

A small, even polygon is not necessarily weak. It can mean a young athlete who is still developing across the board. A spiky polygon is not necessarily a problem. Many elite players have one dominant trait. Position, age and sport all change what a good shape looks like.

Read the chart in this order: scale first, comparison group second, outliers third, overall shape last. Shape is the most eye-catching part and the least reliable one, which the next section explains.

Why axis order and scale change what you see

Radar charts have a known quirk: the area of the polygon depends on the order of the axes. A Minitab analysis of an NFL prospect showed that reordering the same categories produced four different visual impressions, with the polygon covering anywhere from 20% to 40% of the available area. The data never changed. Only the arrangement did.

A football analytics write-up from 2026 reached a similar conclusion with a lie factor calculation. Two players with almost identical average percentiles (55.55 and 54.71) had polygons that looked far more different than their numbers. The author’s conclusion was balanced: radar charts are neither good nor bad in themselves. Their value depends on how deliberately they are built and read, and they work best as exploratory or communication tools.

This gives you practical rules for building them well:

• Fix the axis order and never change it between athletes or testing dates.
• Group related metrics next to each other, for example the speed tests together and the strength tests together.
• Use the same scale on every axis, ideally 0 to 100.
• Keep it to 5 to 8 axes. Fewer than five looks thin, and more than eight is hard to read.
• Show the numbers beside or under the chart, so nobody judges by area alone.

If you follow these rules, the chart becomes a reliable summary, and you can compare an athlete with their own earlier charts without being fooled by layout.

Which measures belong on an athlete radar chart

Choose metrics that are tied to the demands of the sport and that you can test the same way each time. A few examples:

Physical testing batteries can be quite short. Sanford Health’s SCORE measures power, speed, agility and movement using four tests: a 20-yard sprint, pro agility, vertical jump and broad jump. It has been used more than 24,000 times with over 10,000 athletes, and coaches can narrow comparisons by position and age. Four tests will not tell you everything, but they show how a small, repeatable set of measures can be turned into one score and one profile.

Body composition is another common input, particularly for older athletes. If you track it, a clear record of results over time helps, such as tracking body composition over time from repeated scans, so you can add it to a multi-test profile alongside speed and strength measures.

Mix physical, technical and mental or tactical measures where you can. A chart made only of physical tests tells a coach nothing about game sense.

Percentile ranks: giving every axis the same meaning

Raw numbers on a radar chart do not work well together. A 4.8-second sprint, a 24-inch jump and a 7/10 coach rating cannot sit on the same scale. Percentile ranks solve this. A percentile rank says what share of a reference group scored at or below the athlete. The 70th percentile means better than about 70% of the group.

The Golf Fitness Association guide says radar charts work best when data is standardised using z-scores or percentile ranks, because standardised scores compare an athlete with a meaningful reference group rather than just displaying raw data.

How percentiles are calculated

The steps are simple:

1. Collect results from a reference group tested the same way.
2. Sort each test’s results from worst to best, flipping timed tests so lower times rank higher.
3. Work out where the athlete’s result falls in that list, as a percentage of the group.
4. Plot that number on the axis.

A spreadsheet can do this. The NSCA’s Total Score of Athleticism method averages z-scores from a sport-specific testing battery, using t-scores for small samples, and can then convert the result to a 0 to 100 percentile scale with Excel’s PERCENTRANK formula, where 50% is the mean.

Real-world percentile systems

American football offers good examples of large reference groups. The Relative Athletic Score is a 0 to 10 composite that rates a prospect against all players at the same position in NFL Draft history back to 1987, with each of ten measurables scored on a percentile scale. A published study of 3,015 Combine participants gave percentile rankings by position group for the 2015 to 2019 combines.

Most clubs will not have data on that scale, so build your own reference group from your academy, age band and position. A smaller but relevant group is better than a huge but irrelevant one.

What percentiles do not tell you

Percentiles rank athletes within the tested group. The NSCA authors point out that half the athletes will always be below average. They suggest asking whether a low score reveals a real window of opportunity or is simply a by-product of an exceptionally fit squad. A player at the 40th percentile in an elite squad may be stronger than a player at the 80th percentile in a casual one.

Comparing athletes and tracking progress fairly

Fair comparison is where most charts go wrong. A few habits help.

Compare like with like. Use the same position, age band and sex where it applies, and the same test protocol, surface and time of day. Sanford’s approach of filtering by position and age shows the principle in practice.

Overlay the athlete’s own history. Plot this term’s shape over last term’s in a different colour. Growth in an axis is easier to see on one chart than in two. Progress against yourself is often the most motivating comparison for a young player.

Show change as well as level. A player moving from the 30th to the 55th percentile in agility has done something notable, even if the level is still average.

Test on a schedule. Two or three testing windows a year is enough for most youth programmes. More frequent testing mostly captures noise.

Account for birth timing. Selection systems can favour athletes born earlier in the selection year. Research on the relative age effect describes this advantage as persistent and raises fairness questions for talent identification. When you compare children in the same age group, note birth month beside the chart.

Reading charts for youth athletes

Youth charts need extra care. During a growth spurt, bone grows faster than muscle, which lengthens muscles and raises their resting tension. The same paper notes that a plateau or even a dip in performance is not unusual while the athlete adapts to the physical and perceptual changes growth brings.

So a shrinking axis in a 13-year-old may reflect growth rather than lack of effort. Practical ways to handle this:

• Talk about the trend over several windows, not one result.
• Record height and growth rate where your programme measures them.
• Pair every chart with a conversation about effort, attitude and enjoyment, which no axis captures.
• Share charts with parents alongside a plain explanation of what percentiles mean.

Grouping players by maturity rather than birth date, known as bio-banding, is one answer, but be realistic. An NSCA review says that although these strategies are designed in good faith, there is limited evidence on their effectiveness for injury risk, competitive equity or development. The same review notes that biological, psychological and social development do not progress in step. The takeaway for coaches is to use charts to guide support, never to make early selection decisions on one snapshot.

Turning the chart into a development plan

A chart is only useful when it leads to action. A simple routine:

1. Pick two or three priority axes, not all the low ones.
2. Agree one measurable target for each, such as moving agility ten percentile points by the next testing window.
3. Link drills to each axis so the athlete knows what to practise.
4. Re-test on schedule with the same protocol.
5. Celebrate movement and then reset the targets.

This keeps the athlete in charge of their own development, which is what makes charts motivating rather than judgemental.

Our view on charts and player profiles

We build LevelUp360HQ around one idea: athletes should own their development. A radar chart is a good start, but a one-off picture is not enough to keep a young player engaged. They need a profile that stays live, updates as they improve and gives them something to work towards.

That is why our platform uses FIFA-style player cards with real-time ratings, XP-driven challenges and tier progression, alongside badges, leaderboards and performance analytics. The profile moves when the athlete does, so strengths and gaps are visible any day, not only after a testing event.

For coaches, we think the same profile should feed straight into video assessments, approval workflows and session planning, so a low axis becomes a training task. For clubs, it should sit in the same place as the CRM, subscriptions and branding. We designed it to work across football, cricket, netball and rugby, with youth safeguarding built in, because the people reading these profiles are often children.

The principle underneath it all is simple: show the athlete where they stand, give them a clear next step, and let them see the progress.

Chris

Put athlete profiles to work in your club

If you run a club or academy and want profiles that update as athletes train, LevelUp360HQ brings player cards, ratings, challenges and coaching tools into one platform. The Pro plan is £49 per month, with an active athlete platform fee of £1.50 per month per active athlete. A revenue share applies to integrated payments, with no published price.

You can see how it works on the LevelUp360HQ prototype page, or start at the LevelUp360HQ homepage.

FAQ

What is a radar chart used for in sport?

It compares an athlete’s results across several metrics in one picture. Coaches use it to spot strengths, find development priorities and show athletes and parents a balanced view of progress. It works best with a consistent set of tests and a clear reference group.

What does a percentile rank mean for an athlete?

A percentile rank shows the share of a reference group that an athlete scored at or above. At the 75th percentile, an athlete beat about three quarters of the group. The meaning depends on who is in the group, so state the age, position and squad used.

How many metrics should an athlete radar chart have?

Five to eight is a good range. That is enough to show a profile and few enough to read. Group related measures together and keep the order the same every time you chart.

Can radar charts be used with young athletes?

Yes, with care. Growth and maturation can cause temporary dips or jumps in results, so look at the trend over several testing windows and pair the chart with a conversation about effort and enjoyment. Use it to guide support rather than to make selection decisions.

Sources

• Radar Chart Guide: When to Use a Spider Chart
• Building a Golf Performance Profile: Using Data to Inform Decisions
• Data Definitions Guide, ProspectsIDCamp
• Beware the Radar Chart!
• Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and radar charts
• Sanford SCORE: This one number measures your athletic performance
• Tracking body composition over time
• Total Score of Athleticism: Holistic Athlete Profiling
• About RAS
• Percentile Rankings and Position Differences, NFL Scouting Combine
• Editorial: Relative age effect in sports
• Developmental changes in the youth athlete
• Bio-Banding in Sport: Applications to Competition