The Relationship Between Strength Qualities & Sprint Acceleration Performance Research from Claire Brady, University of Limerick & the Sport Ireland Institute What strength qualities underpin acceleration speed in field sport athletes? Methods: Field sport athletes (n=26) Speed @ 5/10/20/30m splits Isometric Squat (bilateral) CMJ RSI (10-5 RJT) Headlines: 1⃣ 3 principle components identified in dataset: 🔸Maximal isometric strength & relative iso strength 🔸Explosive strength: Isometric force (<200ms) 🔸Sprint performance & SSC abilities (CMJ, RSI) 2⃣ No relationship was observed between Maximal Isometric Strength (or max. iso relative strength) and sprint performance at any sprint distance 3⃣ Athletes with better Explosive Strength (top quartile in force @ 100ms) had better performance in early phase acceleration (0-5m) than those with poorer explosive strength (bottom quartile athletes in F @ 100ms) 4⃣ Slow SSC Fast Dynamic Strength was sig. correlated with all sprint distances with the strongest relationship observed at 10-20m. The athletes with best CMJ (top quartile) were significantly faster at 10-20m compared with athletes with the poorer CMJ (bottom quartile) 5⃣ Reactive Strength was significantly associated with all sprint distances >5m (10/20/30m) with strongest relationship at 20-30m. The athletes with best RSI (top quartile) were significantly faster at 5-10m, 10-20m and 20-30m compared with athletes with the poorest RSI (bottom quartile)