Spatiotemporal acceleration strategies in elite American male and female sprinters: between-group similarities and individual differences

We investigated maximal accelerations from starting blocks in 24 elite American sprinters (12 males, 100 m personal best 9.89 ± 0.09 s; 12 females, 100 m personal best 10.87 ± 0.09 s). Two trials per athlete were analysed from 0 to 10 m using high-speed video (240 fps) to obtain 2D spatiotemporal kinematics. Our first hypothesis, using group mean data, was that males would accelerate faster and have longer step lengths, but that there would be no significant male vs. female differences for the temporal variables. Our second hypothesis, focusing on individual data, was that although there would be similar times to 10 m within male and female groups, individual combinations of contact time, flight time, step rate, and step length would be used. Both hypotheses were confirmed. The results of this study indicated that from a group mean perspective, males and females displayed different acceleration performance (~7% difference, p < 0.001) but similar temporal variables (|Δ| ≤0.003 s difference, all p > 0.369). However, the results also showed substantial variation in spatiotemporal acceleration strategy within groups of males and females, highlighting that there are numerous different strategies to attain elite acceleration even among athletes of similar high-performance level.