Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate 3 different starting techniques from the
staggered stance with regards to sprint time, reaction time, linear impulse and power.
11 male amateur American football players volunteered to participate in a testing
session consisting of twelve 5 m sprints, 4 in each technique (normal (NORM), backwards
false step (BFS) and forwards false step (FFS)) in random order. Sprint starts were
performed on force plates to investigate ground reaction forces, reaction time and
total sprint time. Analysis showed significant differences in sprint times, with NORM
(1.77±0.10 s) being faster than FFS (1.81±0.12 s) and BFS (2.01±0.13 s), and FFS being
faster than BFS, although no differences were found in reaction time. In terms of
mean force and power, NORM (331.1±39.2N, 542.2±72.3W) and FFS (320.8±43.2N, 550.9±81.4W)
were significantly larger than BFS (256.9±36.2N, 443.5±61.1W). This indicates that
when starting from a staggered stance, the BFS is inferior to the others and should
be avoided. However, since the force profiles of the NORM and the FFS were similar,
the differences in sprint time could arise from a technique bias towards the NORM
start.
