Speed, force, and power values produced from nonmotorized treadmill test are related to sprinting performance

The relationships between 30-m sprint time and performance on a nonmotorized treadmill (TM) test and a vertical jump test were determined in this investigation. Seventy-eight physically active men and women (22.9 ± 2.7 years; 73.0 ± 14.7 kg; 170.7 ± 10.4 cm) performed a 30-second maximal sprint on the curve nonmotorized TM after 1 familiarization trial. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients produced significant (p ≤ 0.05) moderate to very strong relationships between 30-m sprint time and body mass (r = -0.37), %fat (r = 0.79), peak power (PP) (r = -0.59), relative PP (r = -0.42), time to peak velocity (r = -0.23) and TM sprint times at 10 m (r = 0.48), 20 m (r = 0.59), 30 m (r = 0.67), 40 m (r = 0.71), and 50 m (r = 0.75). Strong relationships between 30-m 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 30-m 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 crossvalidated against another group (n = 39). As no significant differences were observed between these groups, data were combined (n = 72) and used to create the final prediction models (TM1: r = 0.75, standard error of the estimate (SEE) = 0.27 seconds; TM2: r = 0.84, SEE = 0.22 seconds). These final movement-specific models seem to be more accurate in predicting 30-m sprint time than derived peak (r = 0.23, SEE = 0.48 seconds) and mean vertical jump power (r = 0.31, SEE = 0.45 seconds) 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-second maximal sprinting test.