Effect of competitiveness on forty-yard dash performance in college men and women

The objective of this study was to determine performance differences between individual and competitive trials of the 40-yard dash. Physically active college men (n = 25) and women (n = 29) performed an individual 40-yard dash, followed by completion of the Sports Competition Trait Inventory (SCTI) before performing a paired 40-yard dash against a time-matched competitor. All sprints were performed on an indoor rubberized track using photoelectric gates to start and stop a digital timer. In addition, 3 timers used hand-held stopwatches to record the individual sprint time. There was no significant difference (p = 0.10) between men (120.3 +/- 16.6) and women (111.7 +/- 20.3) on the SCTI. There was no significant difference between individual and competitive 40-yard dash times for either men (5.21 +/- 0.24 and 5.19 +/- 0.23 seconds, respectively) or women (6.12 +/- 0.31 and 6.11 +/- 0.32 seconds, respectively). The correlation between SCTI and both individual and competitive 40-yard dashes was significant (p < 0.05) for women (r = -0.45 and -0.44, respectively) but not for men (r = -0.10 and 0.10, respectively). Electronic times (5.70 +/- 0.54 seconds) were not significantly different from 1 hand-timer (5.71 +/- 0.56 seconds) but were significantly faster than the other 2 timers (5.80 +/- 0.58 and 5.82 +/- 0.57 seconds). Averaging the 3 hand times (5.78 +/- 0.56 seconds) for comparison with the electronic timing (5.70 +/- 0.54 seconds) produced a high correlation (r = 0.96) but a significantly slower time (p < 0.05). A competitive environment does not appear to improve short sprint times in either men or women. In addition, hand timing may not always produce faster times compared to electronic timing.