Written by Andrew Maclennan
www.getfastandstrong.com/

A short summary of the factors that influence performance in sprinting.
 

Height
The most successful sprinters are between 5 feet 9 inches and 6 feet inches tall.
Sprinters taller than this tend to struggle to develop high enough stride frequencies while sprinters shorter than 5 feet 9 inches tend to struggle with a long enough stride length so a good sprinter will probably fall in this height range.

Body Mass
Again tying in with the range of heights mentioned above, weight ranges tend to fall in the 75-90kg continuum. Sprinters lighter than this tend to struggle to develop enough power as they have limited muscle mass, whilst those athletes who are heavier than 90kg are going to need to be extremely strong to be able to move their muscle mass.

Skinfolds
Sprint athletes, due to their training regime, high testosterone levels and genetics tend to be low in body fat. If they are not then they are just carrying extra dead mass, which is undesirable. 

Proportionality characteristics
Longer legs with shorter bodies tend to produce better sprinters. Longer legs should give a longer stride length, and as sprinting speed is the product of stride length multiplied by stride frequency, this should give a higher maximum velocity reached.

Somatotype
Generally ecto/meso is the ideal somatotype. Lean and tall, slim hips, wide shoulders with good muscle development. This supports the low fat, long legged athlete as explained above.

Girths
Well muscled upper leg/glute region but very small lower leg musculature is ideal. This helps contribute to a smaller mass swinging about the knee during the sprint stride which will aid stride frequency and therefore velocity.

Aerobic capacity
Aerobic capacity for the sprinter is not a big factor so it is not hugely important to possess this attribute to overly high levels.

Anaerobic capacity
This is much more important, and is influenced by aerobic capacity of course, but can be more genetically determined by anaerobic enzyme levels, which buffer the onset of lactate acid, and which some athletes tend to have in higher amounts compared with others.

Strength
Strength is an important quality as it generally enables the athlete to produce more force, and as long as the athlete can apply the force quickly then their performance levels should improve in the 100 metre sprint.

Speed
Speed is the key factor in the 100 metre sprint. Those athletes who can produce the highest velocity tend to win races, as long as their acceleration qualities are sound. Fibre type characteristics play an important role here, through higher stride frequencies. and these are largely genetically determined.

Power
High levels of power are very important so the athlete can accelerate to maximum velocity in the shortest possible period. Again, fibre type distribution plays an important role here, with the athletes who possess more IIb fibres more likely to produce higher levels of power and stride frequency.

Motivation
Whilst the athlete needs to be physically gifted they must also be highly motivated to train, with it usually taking many years of high level training before the athlete can expect to reach world class level.

Will Power
Will power is a little like determination and is an absolute must for any athlete
wishing to make it to the highest levels. To go through the pain of all the training and potential defeats along the way, and to still retain the desire and will power to succeed is vital.

Concentration
Perhaps not the greatest asset needed for a sprinter as they just need to relax and let it happen but they must learn to concentrate on the stimulus of the start as well as maintain internal concentration during the race and not be too distracted by other athletes around them.

Aggression
I believe this is an important aspect of this event as it is explosive in nature and the athlete must run with maximal intensity and force, so there is an element of aggression involved, especially in the training phase (with weights). Too much aggression can become a bad thing for the athlete if they start to fight themselves, so it must be controlled aggression with a degree of relaxation too.

Determination
A given, success will not be achieved without immense determination.

Vision
Not that essential in sprinting as there is not a lot of game sense needed, perhaps just an awareness of what the body is doing as well as what their opposition is doing, for example, if the athlete needs to finish in the first three etc to qualify for the next round of a competition.

Kinaesthetic abilities
As stated above, they must be aware of what their body is doing especially with improvements in technique. If they have little or no awareness of what their body is doing in space then it is very difficult for them to improve their positions in space.

Decision Making
See vision.

Early or late developers…
The late developer tends to be more successful in my opinion. The talent that is a world-beater at an early age is not often that competitive at a later age. The reason being I am not sure, perhaps hormone levels? It seems to be more beneficial to be a late developer who is elite at 18+ years as this is where the competition takes place. There is no world championships for the 100 metre sprint at 12 years etc so it is of little benefit to be a superstar at this age, as is perhaps desirable in other sports, for example, gymnastics.

Performance Pie
The following pie graph illustrates how much I feel each component contributes toward the performance of a 100 metre sprinter.