Acceleration is the foundation of sports performance - the quicker, the better. However, injury severely impacts acceleration, and its restoration is essential to ensuring optimal performance. Helen Bayne discusses how practitioners can optimize rehabilitation to include acceleration as a critical component to athlete rehabilitation.
The ability to rapidly increase running speed is a critical component of athletic performance. In addition, many sports require acceleration, whether from the starting blocks in a track and field event or from an upright position during a non-stationary start, such as in field sports. Practitioners commonly assess an athlete’s acceleration ability using a forward linear acceleration test over a specified distance (e.g., a 30-m sprint test). Although multidirectional acceleration is also relevant for sports performance, analysis of linear acceleration provides the fundamental understanding of its mechanical underpinnings.
Effective acceleration requires an athlete to produce a large external force applied in the appropriate direction, coordinated movement patterns, and powerful actions of the lower limb joints. Therefore, understanding the mechanical determinants and the role of the muscles primarily responsible for acceleration performance is important for practitioners to assess, prepare, and rehabilitate athletes.
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