3.6 Acceleration: Mechanics, Physiology, and Programming

The short version

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Most sprints in sport are over before they ever start looking like a sprint. A footballer, a netballer, a basketball guard — they rarely get more than fifteen or twenty metres before they have to cut, jump, stop, or crash into somebody. All of that happens in the first handful of strides, which means the part of running that matters most to them is the part that looks least like an Olympic final.

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So this article is about those first five to fifteen strides: how they work, what limits them, a full library of drills to develop them, and a way of fitting the work into a normal training week. It assumes you have already got your head around landing (3.3) and top-speed mechanics (3.4), and now want to build the start rather than train top speed and hope the start comes along for the ride.

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One idea sits underneath all of it: getting going is a question of aiming your force before it is a question of having more force. At the very first step you need raw strength, because you are shifting a body that is not moving. By around the tenth step you need springiness instead. And a drill is only worth keeping if it sends more of your push backwards into the ground — not because it left you on the floor gasping.

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Getting going is its own skill

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Acceleration just means changing speed, and in sport that almost always means going forwards from a stop or a jog. Top speed is a separate skill with its own mechanics, covered in 3.4. The two are cousins rather than twins, and plenty of athletes are excellent at one and thoroughly average at the other (Buchheit et al., 2014).

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Why this is the bit that matters. Competitive sprinting mostly happens well before anyone reaches the smooth upright mechanics you see on television. Field and court athletes almost never get that far. Train top speed only and you have spent your time polishing the part of the sprint you use least.

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Think about pushing a broken-down car. Nobody stands up straight beside it and presses downward. You lean in, get your shoulders out ahead of your feet, and drive backwards into the ground so the force goes the way you want the car to travel. Once it is rolling you stand up a bit and your pushes get shorter and quicker. Accelerating is exactly that, except the car is your own body.

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Direction beats effort. That lean is not showmanship. From a standstill, force pointed straight down at the floor does nothing useful for you — it has to go backwards to send you forwards. As you pick up speed, how much you can angle it drops away, which is why the lean disappears on its own rather than being something you decide to give up. If a drill lets you keep pushing backwards for longer, it is doing its job, however easy it feels.

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What limits you changes as you go. Step one is basically a strength problem. You are shifting a stationary body and there is nothing springy to help you. By step ten you are barely touching the ground and it has turned into a springiness problem instead. That is why no single drill covers the whole thing, and why two athletes with the same slow ten metres can be slow for completely different reasons.

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Watch it happen in a game. A defender closing down a receiver leans hard, takes long driving steps, and only stands tall once the gap is nearly shut. A basketball guard attacking a closeout does the same thing inside three strides. Neither one is trying to look like a sprinter. Both are trying to get force behind themselves.

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If you only get to train one speed quality, train this one. It carries over into changing direction, into first-step quickness, and into the braking and collision qualities that keep athletes in one piece. Top speed is a lovely thing to own. Acceleration is the thing that actually turns up in a game.

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The rest of the article goes into the detail: how the ratio of horizontal to total force behaves stride by stride, the physiology behind each phase, the full drill library with loading options, and a programming framework you can drop into a week. Those sections are more technical, so read them when you want the mechanism rather than the map.

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Advanced Section: The Mechanics and Physiology of Acceleration

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Force Orientation and the Ratio of Forces

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The single most useful concept in acceleration science is the ratio of forces. It is the horizontal component of ground reaction force divided by the resultant (total) ground reaction force at each step. Two athletes can produce identical total force and still accelerate very differently if one of them aims that force better.

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Morin and colleagues demonstrated that the rate at which this ratio decreases as velocity rises, known as the index of force application technique, discriminates sprint performance independently of maximal power output (Morin et al., 2011). In plain language: Technique is not cosmetic. Keeping force pointed backward while the legs are moving quickly is itself a trainable mechanical skill.

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• Step one: The ratio of forces is at its highest because the shin is inclined sharply and velocity is near zero.
• Steps two to six: The ratio falls steadily as the athlete rises and velocity climbs.
• Beyond roughly twenty to thirty metres: The ratio approaches values typical of top speed running, where force is predominantly vertical and the task becomes minimising braking rather than producing propulsion (Morin et al., 2015).

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This is why heavy sled work, hill starts, and resisted marches are effective early-acceleration tools: They hold the athlete in a low, projected position and demand a longer, more horizontally oriented push (Petrakos et al., 2016).

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The Phases of Acceleration

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It helps to divide acceleration into three overlapping phases, each with its own dominant limiting quality.

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Acceleration Phase Model

Phase 1 — Start and Push (steps 1 to 3)

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Dominant quality: Concentric strength and rate of force development

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Phase 2 — Transition and Drive (steps 4 to 10)

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Dominant quality: Horizontal power and hip extension velocity

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Phase 3 — Upright Acceleration (steps 11 onward)

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Dominant quality: Reactive strength, stiffness, and elastic recoil

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The practical implication is that no single drill develops the whole phase. Heavy sleds train phases one and two. Light resistance and flying starts train phase three. An athlete who only ever pushes heavy sleds becomes very good at the first three steps and then stalls.

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Joint Actions and the Kinetic Chain

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Acceleration is a triple-extension task performed asymmetrically and at speed. The dominant joint moment shifts as the athlete rises: Hip extensor dominance early, then an increasing ankle contribution as contact times shorten (Rabita et al., 2015).

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Kinetic Chain During the Drive Phase

Central nervous system drive

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Hip extension (gluteus maximus, hamstrings, adductor magnus)

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Knee extension (quadriceps)

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Ankle plantarflexion (gastrocnemius, soleus) transmitted through a stiff Achilles tendon

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Foot and plantar fascia acting as the final stiff lever

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Horizontal ground reaction force

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Two details matter for coaching. First, the trunk is not passive: It must resist extension and rotation so that hip extension torque is expressed against the ground rather than lost into lumbar movement. Second, the swing leg is not a passenger. Aggressive hip flexion of the free limb generates an equal and opposite reaction that contributes meaningfully to forward projection.

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Energy Systems and Neural Determinants

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• ATP-PC system: Supplies essentially all of the energy for efforts under six seconds (Haff & Triplett, 2016). A maximal 10 m to 30 m acceleration is entirely phosphagen-driven, which is why full recovery between repetitions is non-negotiable.
• Motor unit recruitment: Maximal acceleration requires near-complete recruitment of high-threshold motor units in the hip and knee extensors. Recruitment and firing rate are organised by the nervous system, but the drop-off you see as a session wears on is neuromuscular fatigue, with central and peripheral contributions that cannot be separated without direct measurement.
• Rate coding: The frequency of motor unit firing determines how quickly force rises. Rate of force development, not maximal strength alone, governs the first two steps.
• Tendon stiffness: As contact times fall below roughly 0.15 seconds, the Achilles and plantar structures must behave like stiff springs. Tendon stiffness is trainable but adapts on a longer timescale than muscle, typically eight to twelve weeks.
• Intermuscular coordination: The sequencing of hip, knee, and ankle moments is a motor-learning problem. This is why technical work must be done fresh, not tacked onto the end of a conditioning session.

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Force-Velocity Profiling

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Sprint acceleration can be modelled as a linear force-velocity relationship from which theoretical maximal force, theoretical maximal velocity, and maximal power are derived. Samozino and colleagues validated a simple field method that requires only split times or a radar trace (Samozino et al., 2016).

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The value is diagnostic. An athlete whose profile is force-deficient needs heavy resisted work and maximal strength training. An athlete who is velocity-deficient needs light resistance, flying starts, and overspeed exposure. Prescribing the same acceleration block to both athletes wastes half the training (Haugen et al., 2019).

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Practical Section: Building Acceleration

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Everything below assumes the athlete can already decelerate and land competently. If an athlete cannot absorb force, do not teach them to produce more of it. Revisit Landing Mechanics (3.3) first.

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One boundary before the drills: everything here is performance coaching, not rehabilitation. If you are working back from an injury, the progression that matters is the one your clinician sets, and return-to-running and return-to-sport criteria belong with them. Pain during or after sprinting, swelling, a joint that gives way, anything post-operative, a suspected concussion, or hop and strength testing that still fails side to side are reasons to get assessed before adding maximal-intent work, not reasons to push on.

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Exercise Library

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1. Heavy Sled March

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• Purpose: Maximise horizontal force production and teach a sustained, projected body position.
• Primary muscles: Gluteus maximus, hamstrings, quadriceps.
• Secondary muscles: Soleus, adductor magnus, deep trunk stabilisers.
• Movement pattern: Horizontal push and unilateral hip extension.
• Difficulty: Beginner to intermediate.
• Equipment: Sled and harness or push handles, turf or track.
• Coaching cues: Long spine from the ear to the back heel; push the floor away behind you; one deliberate step at a time.
• Common mistakes: Bending at the waist instead of leaning as one line; short choppy steps; letting the load pull the hips into flexion.
• Progressions: Reduce load and increase speed toward a sled run; then to a resisted flying start.
• Regressions: Wall march or band-resisted march with a partner.
• Sport applications: Excellent for linemen, rugby forwards, wrestlers, and any athlete who accelerates from a low stance.
• When to use: Early in a speed block, or in-season as a low-eccentric alternative to sprinting.
• When not to use: When the goal is late acceleration or top speed mechanics; heavy loads distort the upright pattern.
• Programming: 4 to 6 sets of 10 to 20 m at 50 to 100 percent of body mass on the sled, with 90 to 180 seconds of rest (Petrakos et al., 2016).

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2. Wall Drill (Wall March and Wall Switch)

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• Purpose: Rehearse drive-phase positions with the shin angle and body line held constant.
• Primary muscles: Hip flexors of the swing leg, gluteus maximus and calf of the support leg.
• Secondary muscles: Abdominal wall as an anti-extension stabiliser.
• Movement pattern: Alternating hip flexion and extension in a fixed forward lean.
• Difficulty: Beginner.
• Equipment: A wall.
• Coaching cues: Straight line from ankle to ear; knee up and toe up; heel recovers under the hip, not behind it.
• Common mistakes: Hips sagging toward the wall; pushing with the arms; reaching the foot out in front of the body.
• Progressions: Single switch, then double switch, then continuous rhythm switches with a tempo call.
• Regressions: Static wall lean hold for 10 to 20 seconds.
• Sport applications: Universal teaching tool; especially valuable for athletes with limited sprint background.
• When to use: Warm-up or technical primer before sprint work.
• When not to use: As a substitute for actual sprinting; the wall removes the requirement to project.
• Programming: 2 to 3 sets of 3 to 6 switches per leg, or 2 sets of 10 to 15 seconds of continuous rhythm.

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3. Falling Start

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• Purpose: Teach projection and the first two steps without the complexity of a formal block start.
• Primary muscles: Gluteus maximus, hamstrings, quadriceps.
• Secondary muscles: Calf complex, trunk.
• Movement pattern: Controlled forward fall into horizontal drive.
• Difficulty: Beginner to intermediate.
• Equipment: None.
• Coaching cues: Fall until you have to run; do not step until gravity makes you; first step lands under the hip, not in front.
• Common mistakes: Stepping too early, which produces an upright first stride; breaking at the waist; over-striding on step one.
• Progressions: Falling start into a 10 m sprint, then a 20 m sprint, then a reactive start on a visual or auditory cue.
• Regressions: Partner-supported lean and release.
• Sport applications: Field and court sports where starts are unpredictable and self-initiated.
• When to use: Whenever teaching acceleration technique from scratch.
• When not to use: For track athletes rehearsing block clearance specifically.
• Programming: 4 to 8 repetitions of 10 to 20 m with 60 to 120 seconds of rest.

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4. Trap Bar Jump

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• Purpose: Develop rate of force development and peak power in a loaded triple-extension pattern.
• Primary muscles: Gluteus maximus, quadriceps, hamstrings.
• Secondary muscles: Erector spinae, gastrocnemius, grip.
• Movement pattern: Bilateral hip and knee extension with a loaded vertical projection.
• Difficulty: Intermediate.
• Equipment: Trap bar and plates.
• Coaching cues: Get long fast; drive the floor down; land quietly and reset every rep.
• Common mistakes: Loading too heavy so the jump becomes a slow pull; not resetting between reps; landing with locked knees.
• Progressions: Add load while monitoring peak velocity; progress toward single-leg loaded jumps.
• Regressions: Unloaded countermovement jump or dumbbell jump.
• Sport applications: Broadly transferable; particularly useful for football, rugby, and combat athletes in a strength-power block.
• When to use: Early in a session after the warm-up, before fatiguing work.
• When not to use: With athletes who cannot yet land competently, or on days with high sprint volume.
• Programming: 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 repetitions at loads that keep peak velocity above roughly 90 percent of the unloaded value.

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5. Barbell Hip Thrust

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• Purpose: Build horizontally oriented hip extension strength at end range.
• Primary muscles: Gluteus maximus.
• Secondary muscles: Hamstrings, adductor magnus, quadriceps.
• Movement pattern: Supine horizontal hip extension.
• Difficulty: Beginner to intermediate.
• Equipment: Barbell, pad, bench.
• Coaching cues: Ribs down, chin tucked, finish with the hips not the low back.
• Common mistakes: Lumbar hyperextension substituting for hip extension; heels too far from the hips; rushing the eccentric.
• Progressions: Single-leg hip thrust, then band-resisted or paused variations.
• Regressions: Glute bridge or feet-elevated bridge.
• Sport applications: Valuable for sprinters and field-sport athletes. It also appears in hamstring rehabilitation, but that use belongs with a treating clinician rather than a training article.
• When to use: Accessory slot on lower-body strength days.
• When not to use: As a replacement for a squat or hinge pattern; it is a supplement, not a substitute.
• Programming: 3 to 4 sets of 5 to 8 repetitions.

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Progressions and Regressions

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Acceleration Progression Ladder

Wall lean hold

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Wall march and switches

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Heavy sled march (10 to 20 m)

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Falling start to 10 m

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Falling start to 20 m

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Light resisted sprint (10 percent velocity decrement)

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Free 20 to 30 m acceleration

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Reactive start on external cue

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Chaos start from a sport-specific stance

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Move an athlete up the ladder only when the previous rung looks the same on the last repetition as it did on the first. Technical breakdown is a stop sign, not a challenge to push through.

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Programming: Volume, Intensity, Frequency, and Rest

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• Intensity: Acceleration work is a maximal-intent quality. Anything below roughly 95 percent of best effort trains a different skill. Use timing gates or a stopwatch so intent is measurable.
• Volume: 100 to 300 total metres of high-intent acceleration per session for most team-sport athletes. Trained sprinters may tolerate 300 to 500 m in a dedicated session.
• Frequency: Two to three exposures per week during a development block; one to two in-season.
• Rest: Roughly one minute per 10 m sprinted as a floor, and up to three minutes for repetitions beyond 20 m. Short rest turns speed work into conditioning.
• Placement: Immediately after the warm-up, before any strength or conditioning work.
• Recovery: Most athletes need 48 to 72 hours before high-intent acceleration feels sharp again, which is an observed recovery time rather than a measured one, and heavy sled work should be treated as a strength stimulus when planning the week (Thomas et al., 2018).

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Sample Training Week (In-Season Team Sport)

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• Day 1 (post-match + 2): Extensive tempo and technical wall work only. No maximal acceleration.
• Day 2: Acceleration emphasis. Warm-up, wall switches, 4 x 10 m falling starts, 4 x 20 m accelerations, then lower-body strength (trap bar jump, squat, hip thrust).
• Day 3: Recovery, mobility, and upper-body strength.
• Day 4: Reactive and sport-specific starts. 6 x 10 m on a visual cue from sport stances, followed by small-sided games.
• Day 5: Pre-match primer. 3 x 15 m at 90 percent, low volume, high quality.
• Day 6: Competition.
• Day 7: Full rest or active recovery.

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What each element in the week is doing

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• Extensive tempo and technical wall work (Day 1). Submaximal running restores tissue quality and blood flow after competition, while wall drills rehearse the shin angle and switch timing of acceleration with no ground-contact stress.
• Wall switches. Isolate the alternating hip flexion and extension pattern that governs early acceleration, so the athlete practises the motor sequence before adding force.
• Falling starts, 4 x 10 m. Use gravity to create the forward lean automatically, which teaches horizontal force orientation without the athlete having to consciously hold a position.
• Accelerations, 4 x 20 m. The primary quality exposure. Twenty metres is long enough to develop force through the first several steps and short enough to stay in the acceleration phase rather than drifting into maximum velocity.
• Trap bar jump. Trains high-velocity concentric triple extension against light load, sitting between the squat and the sprint on the force–velocity curve.
• Squat. Builds the maximal force reserve that raises the ceiling for every explosive expression. Acceleration is force-limited before it is technique-limited in most developing athletes.
• Hip thrust. Loads hip extension in a horizontal vector, which matches the direction of force application during the early acceleration steps.
• Recovery, mobility, and upper-body strength (Day 3). Keeps training density high while the legs are unloaded, so the following reactive day starts fresh.
• 6 x 10 m on a visual cue from sport stances (Day 4). Adds the reaction and perception component, and starts from the postures the sport actually uses rather than a track stance.
• Small-sided games. Supply unplanned accelerations and repeated-effort demand in a context the athlete is motivated by.
• Pre-match primer, 3 x 15 m at 90 percent (Day 5). Potentiates the nervous system and reminds the body of the pattern at a volume too low to cause fatigue.
• Full rest or active recovery (Day 7). Acceleration quality depends on how fresh the whole neuromuscular system is, and it degrades faster from accumulated fatigue than almost any other trainable quality.

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Monitoring Fatigue

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• Split times: A drop of more than two to three percent from an athlete’s recent best 10 m split is the clearest sign to end the session.
• Countermovement jump height: A reduction of more than five percent from the athlete’s own baseline suggests neuromuscular fatigue and a poor day for speed work.
• Technical quality: When the shin angle at step one starts to look upright, the productive part of the session is over.
• Subjective readiness: A short daily wellness score, tracked consistently, catches accumulated fatigue earlier than most objective tests.
• Reactive strength index: Useful weekly, not daily; a falling reactive strength index over two to three weeks suggests tendon overload.

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Read all of these as readiness signals, not diagnoses. Jump height, grip strength, bar speed and a wellness score tell you an athlete is more fatigued than usual; none of them tells you where that fatigue sits. Separating central from peripheral contributions requires laboratory measurement of voluntary activation, so plan around the trend and leave the mechanism alone.

Sport Applications

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The mechanics of acceleration do not change between sports, but the starting position, the distance available, and what happens at the end of the sprint change a great deal. Those three variables should drive your drill selection.

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Combat Sports

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• mixed martial arts (MMA): Acceleration appears as a level change and a shot from a fighting stance, usually over one to three metres. Train short resisted marches from a staggered stance and reactive first-step drills off an opponent cue rather than long sprints.
• Boxing: The relevant expression is a two-step closing burst and immediate deceleration. Emphasise short accelerations paired with a controlled stop, since the ability to arrive balanced is what allows the athlete to punch.
• Wrestling: The low stance means the athlete lives permanently in a drive-phase posture. Heavy sled marches and low-stance starts transfer directly; upright acceleration work matters far less.
• Brazilian jiu-jitsu: The lowest acceleration demand of the combat sports, but guard passing and scrambles still require rapid hip extension from awkward positions. Prioritise strength and positional power over sprint volume.

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Field and Team Sports

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• Football (American): Highly position-dependent. Linemen need the first three steps from a two- or three-point stance under heavy resistance. Receivers and defensive backs need the full acceleration curve out to twenty-five metres plus a transition into top speed.
• Soccer: Repeat-acceleration ability matters more than a single fast start. Programme high-quality accelerations early in the week and defend against the temptation to convert them into conditioning.
• Hockey: On-ice acceleration is a lateral push against a bladed edge, so the joint angles differ from running. Off-ice work should emphasise lateral and diagonal sled pushes, hip abduction strength, and adductor robustness rather than straight-ahead sprint volume alone.
• Rugby: Athletes accelerate into contact, which means the sprint must finish in a braced, balanced position. Pair acceleration reps with a collision or grapple task once the mechanics are sound.
• Baseball: The two critical accelerations are out of the box and the first three steps of a stolen base. The stolen-base start is a lateral crossover, so train it as its own skill.

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Court and Net Sports

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• Basketball: Almost every acceleration is three to five metres and ends in a jump, a cut, or a stop. Train short accelerations with a defined finishing task rather than open sprints.
• Volleyball: The approach is a short, rhythmic acceleration that converts horizontal momentum into vertical. Work the last three steps of the approach as a distinct skill and keep total sprint volume low.
• Tennis: The first two steps after a split-step dominate. Reactive lateral starts off a visual cue matter far more than linear sprint distance.

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Track and Platform Sports

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• Sprinting: The only sport where the full thirty-metre curve and formal block clearance both matter. Force-velocity profiling is most valuable here because training time is abundant and the target is narrow.
• Olympic weightlifting: Acceleration is not a competition demand, but sprint and jump work is an efficient way to preserve rate of force development during high-volume lifting phases. Keep volume very low and treat it as a stimulus, not a session.
• Powerlifting: The least relevant application. Short sled marches serve mainly as general conditioning and posterior-chain work without adding eccentric load.

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Common Mistakes

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• Training acceleration under fatigue. Placing sprints at the end of a session turns a maximal-intent quality into conditioning and reinforces poor mechanics.
• Over-loading the sled. Loads heavy enough to force a near-static push train a grinding pattern that does not resemble sprinting. If the athlete cannot maintain rhythm, the load is too high.
• Cueing a forward lean instead of a body line. Athletes told to lean often bend at the waist, which shortens the hip extensors and reduces horizontal force.
• Over-striding on the first step. Reaching the foot in front of the centre of mass creates a braking impulse at the exact moment the athlete needs propulsion.
• Ignoring deceleration. Every acceleration in sport ends. Athletes who are never taught to stop accumulate the tissue stress that precedes hamstring and groin injuries.
• Prescribing the same block to every athlete. Force-deficient and velocity-deficient athletes need opposite emphases; a single template serves neither well.
• Chasing drill complexity. Elaborate ladder and cone patterns feel productive but rarely improve force orientation. Fewer, better repetitions win.

Coaching Cues

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• Push the ground away behind you, do not reach for it in front.
• One long line from your back ankle to your ear.
• Step one lands under the hip, not out in front.
• Get long fast, then get tall gradually.
• Arms are pistons, not pendulums.
• Quality ends the set, not the rep count.

FAQs

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How heavy should a sled be for acceleration work?
It depends on the target. For maximal horizontal force, loads of fifty to one hundred percent of body mass are appropriate and will slow the athlete substantially. For preserving sprint mechanics, use loads that reduce velocity by no more than about ten percent. Both have a place, but they train different ends of the force-velocity curve, so label the intent before you load the sled.

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How many acceleration sessions per week?
Two to three in a development block, one to two in-season. The limiting factor is neuromuscular readiness and connective-tissue tolerance, not muscular soreness. If 10 m split times are not improving across a block, the problem is usually too much volume rather than too little.

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Do I need to be strong before training acceleration?
You need to be strong to raise the ceiling, but you do not need to wait. Technical acceleration work can begin immediately, in parallel with strength development. What should come first is competent deceleration and landing, because those are the qualities that protect the athlete while the engine is being built.

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Is uphill sprinting a good substitute for a sled?
It is a good option, and it reduces eccentric load, which makes it useful in-season. The trade-off is that a hill fixes the resistance, so you cannot titrate the load. A gradient of five to ten percent over twenty to thirty metres approximates a light-to-moderate sled.

Recommended Videos

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The Key to Acceleration is Projection — ALTIS World
A concise breakdown of why projecting the centre of mass, rather than pushing harder, is what separates good starts from poor ones. ALTIS coaching language is consistent with the terminology used in this series.
Watch on YouTube

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Acceleration vs Maximum Velocity Sprinting: Differences in Mechanics — Flow High Performance
A clear, research-referenced comparison of joint angles, contact times, and force orientation between the two phases. Useful if you are trying to explain to an athlete why their sprint should look different in the first ten metres.
Watch on YouTube

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Acceleration Mechanics: How to Create Force — Les Spellman
A practical, drill-led session that shows the wall-drill to falling-start progression described above being coached in real time.
Watch on YouTube

References

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Buchheit, M., Samozino, P., Glynn, J. A., Michael, B. S., Al Haddad, H., Mendez-Villanueva, A., & Morin, J. B. (2014). Mechanical determinants of acceleration and maximal sprinting speed in highly trained young soccer players. Journal of Sports Sciences, 32(20), 1906–1913.

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Haugen, T. A., Breitschadel, F., & Seiler, S. (2019). Sprint mechanical variables in elite athletes: Are force-velocity profiles sport specific or individual? PLOS ONE, 14(7), e0215551. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0215551

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Morin, J. B., Edouard, P., & Samozino, P. (2011). Technical ability of force application as a determinant factor of sprint performance. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 43(9), 1680–1688. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0b013e318216ea37

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Morin, J. B., Slawinski, J., Dorel, S., de Villareal, E. S., Couturier, A., Samozino, P., Brughelli, M., & Rabita, G. (2015). Acceleration capability in elite sprinters and ground impulse: Push more, brake less? Journal of Biomechanics, 48(12), 3149–3154.

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Petrakos, G., Morin, J. B., & Egan, B. (2016). Resisted sled sprint training to improve sprint performance: A systematic review. Sports Medicine, 46(3), 381–400. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-015-0422-8

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Rabita, G., Dorel, S., Slawinski, J., Saez-de-Villarreal, E., Couturier, A., Samozino, P., & Morin, J. B. (2015). Sprint mechanics in world-class athletes: A new insight into the limits of human locomotion. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 25(5), 583–594.

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Samozino, P., Rabita, G., Dorel, S., Slawinski, J., Peyrot, N., Saez de Villarreal, E., & Morin, J. B. (2016). A simple method for measuring power, force, velocity properties, and mechanical effectiveness in sprint running. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 26(6), 648–658.

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Haff, G. G., & Triplett, N. T. (Eds.). (2016). Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning (4th ed.). National Strength and Conditioning Association. Human Kinetics.

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Thomas, K., Brownstein, C. G., Dent, J., Parker, P., Goodall, S., & Howatson, G. (2018). Neuromuscular fatigue and recovery after heavy resistance, jump, and sprint training. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 50(12), 2526–2535. Read on PubMed

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Chmielewski, T. L., Myer, G. D., Kauffman, D., & Tillman, S. M. (2006). Plyometric exercise in the rehabilitation of athletes: Physiological responses and clinical application. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, 36(5), 308–319. Read on PubMed