@EamonnFlanagan: Can we assess Reactive Strengt...

Can we assess Reactive Strength Index in horizontal bounding or hopping?

Should we?

Is it associated with sprint performance?

New research from @sharp_ant says yes....

Key findings from this excellent paper:

1⃣ Hop distance in the 3-hop and 5-hop test is well correlated with 10m and 40m sprint performance

(r = -0.7 to -0.8)

2⃣ Reactive Strength Index, calculated in 3-hop or 5-hop tests is associated with sprint performance, particularly beyond 15m.

When this RSI is calculated via hop distance (versus via flight time), it correlates more strongly with sprint performance

3⃣ RSI-horiz differentiates btw sprinting ability (slow vs fast). Its a sensitive measure.

Previously 3-hop vs 5-hop distance (ratio) has been proposed as an indicator of successful sprinters, but here, the 3/5 ratio did not differentiate between sprinters of different ability

Reference:

Sharp, A., Neville, J., Nagahara, R., Wada, T. and Cronin, J., 2025. Using Multiple-Hop Assessments and Reactive Strength Indices to Differentiate Sprinting Performance in Sportsmen. Applied Sciences, 15(4), p.1685.

This paper is currently open access

👏 @sharp_ant