This week we discuss strength standards for fast vs slow linear sprinting speed in American football players. There is a known correlation between lower extremity strength/power and sprinting speed, so the authors aimed to find "how strong is strong enough?" They split a team of collegiate American football players into two groups based on body mass, with those above the median for the group classified as "heavy" and those below the median are "light." They recorded 40 yard dash time, 1RM back squat, 1RM hang clean, broad jump, and vertical jump height; and analyzed the data to determine a threshold for each of the 4 strength/power metrics which correctly classified athletes as either "slow" or "fast." Again, they determined slow vs fast relative to the group with the median 40 yard dash time being the cut-off score. In their discussion, they assert "optimal thresholds are likely to be sex-specific, population-specific, and training age specific, at a minimum." Having an understanding of which key performance indicators are relevant for the population you are working with is necessary to then know which strength/power standards are appropriate for your target population. This is just one article that can exist in a large collection of research studying "how strong is strong enough?"

The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37815260/

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