FORCE-VELOCITY PROFILES IN COLLEGIATE AMERICAN FOOTBALL PLAYERS

Abstract

American football is a intermittent high-intensity sport played in 3-5 seconds bursts with 20-40 seconds rest between each play. The athletic demands are position specific, but all positions require speed, agility, strength and power. Typically, strength and conditioning coaches rely on subjective observations of the athletes’ pre-season fitness or playing experience to design a training regimen. In this study, we aimed to use force-velocity profiling (FV profiling) to objectively measure performance. The first aim of this study was to determine horizontal and vertical F0(N), F0(N/kg), V0(m/s), Pmax(W), and Pmax(W/kg) in collegiate American football players and compare them between position groups. The second aim was to see if force velocity profiling could predict countermovement jump (CMJ) height and flying-10 performance. To investigate these aims we assessed 82 collegiate American football players horizontal and vertical force velocity profiles via a 30 meter sprint, unloaded jumps and loaded jumps as described by Morin and Samozino. We also assessed CMJ height, flying-10 times, squat 1-repetition max (RM) and clean 1-RM. Our results showed a moderate and positive correlation between horizontal V0(m/s) and flying-10 times. We observed a moderate and positive relationship between vertical F0(N) and squat 1-RM, clean 1-RM and CMJ. When controlling for body mass, Pmax (W/kg) had a moderate and positive correlation with CMJ in both vertical and horizontal FV profiles. Both vertical and horizontal Pmax (W/kg) also saw a moderate and negative correlation with Flying-10 performance. Horizontal and vertical FV profiling along with traditional measurements of American Football athletic performance allows the coaching staff to make better informed decisions about which training modalities should be used to improve performance.