Athletes in field and court sports require reactive agility—they must accelerate, decelerate, and change direction in a constantly changing environment. These requirements result in technical differences between sprinting in a field or court sport and sprinting the 100-m.

Acceleration is the rate of change in velocity, so this phase of sprinting is critical for changing directions as rapidly and efficiently as possible. Optimal technique for linear sprinting in the acceleration phase involves four factors that maximize stride length and frequency.

This book excerpt is an overview of the fundamentals to sprinting mechanics and technique. It also covers starting, acceleration, drive phase, recovery phase, and deceleration.

Psyching up can be an effective technique for improving confidence and getting an individual ready for a sporting performance. This infographic shows that psyching up can affect the performance of short-distance sprinting.

The purpose of this article is to review various gravitational running (GR) techniques from an evidence-based approach, then recommend whether to include GR techniques in the training of tactical athletes.

Sprinting is a key component for many individual and team sports. Therefore, to enhance sprint performance, various training methods are widely used by coaches and practitioners, including maximum sprint speed and resisted sprint training. Resisted sprinting with sled towing is a method that has recently received considerable attention from the sport science community. However, to date, no consensus exists regarding its acute and chronic effects in team sport athletes. This narrative review aimed to (a) review and analyze the mechanics of sprinting under unresisted and resisted conditions with a specific focus on team sport disciplines; (b) provide a thorough and applied discussion on the importance of considering acute and chronic effects of sled loading on technique, electromyographic activity, and force production, as well as on the role of muscle architecture and neural factors in sled training; (c) analyze the effects of increasing sled loads during acceleration and maximum velocity phases on contact and flight phases, while concomitantly examining kinetic, kinematic, and neuromuscular aspects, because all these factors affect each other and cannot be properly understood in isolation.

Strength and conditioning coaches should strive to teach athletes in a way they can understand: by hearing, seeing, and practicing. This article describes some techniques that a coach can use to accomplish this.

This infographic describes the type of muscle activation three exercises elicited and their relationship to maximal sprinting performance.

In this session from the NSCA’s 2016 TSAC Annual Training, Lance Walker identifies current trends in acceleration training for athletics, and discusses ideas for integrating elements of acceleration development into all facets of training.

This article seeks to provide some insight to optimal biomechanics in running technique and why normal gravitational techniques may not suit tactical athletes while load-bearing.