Speed, Force and Power Values Produced from a Non-motorized Treadmill Test Are Related to Sprinting Performance.

The relationships between 30m sprint time and performance on a non-motorized treadmill test, as well as a vertical jump test were determined in the present investigation. Seventy-eight physically active men and women (22.9±2.7 y; 73.0±14.7 kg; 170.7±10.4 cm) performed a 30-s maximal sprint on the Curve™ non-motorized treadmill (TM) following one familiarization trial. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients produced significant (p<0.05) moderate to very strong relationships between 30m sprint time and body mass (r= -0.37), %Fat (r=0.79), peak power (r= -0.59), relative peak power (r= -0.42), time to peak velocity (r= -0.23), as well as TM sprint times at 10m (r=0.48), 20m (r=0.59), 30m (r=0.67), 40m (r=0.71), and 50m (r=0.75). Strong relationships between 30m sprint time and peak- (r= -0.479) and mean vertical jump power (r= -0.559) were also observed. Subsequently, stepwise regression was used to produce two 30m sprint time prediction models from TM performance (TM1: body mass+TM-data; and TM2: body composition+TM-data) in a validation group (n=39) and then cross-validated against another group (n=39). As no significant differences were observed between these groups, data was combined (n=72) and used to create the final prediction models (TM1: r=0.75, SEE=0.27s; TM2: r=0.84, SEE=0.22s). These final movement-specific models appear to be more accurate in predicting 30m sprint time than derived peak- (r=0.23, SEE=0.48s) and mean vertical jump power (r=0.31, SEE=0.45s) equations. Consequently, sprinting performance on the TM can significantly predict short-distance sprint time. It therefore, may be used to obtain movement-specific measures of sprinting force, velocity, and power in a controlled environment from a single 30-s maximal sprinting test.