The literature contains some hypotheses regarding the most favorable ground reaction force (GRF) for sprint running and how it might be achieved. This study tested the relevance of these hypotheses to the acceleration phase of a sprint, using GRF impulse as the GRF variable of interest. Thirty-six athletes performed maximal-effort sprints from which video and GRF data were collected at the 16-m mark. Associations between GRF impulse (expressed relative to body mass) and various kinematic measures were explored with simple and multiple linear regressions and paired t-tests.
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