Acceleration testing: 10, 20 and 30 m
Acceleration tests time the first 10 to 30 m of a sprint from a standing or crouched start. They're quick to run and match the short sprints of field sports, as long as you control the start.
Which distances
Gates at 10, 20 and 30 m are enough to build a sprint profile for team-sport athletes, according to Haugen and colleagues (2020, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research). The 10 m split shows the first steps, and 20 to 30 m shows how well you keep building speed.
Norms from professional soccer
Reinhardt et al. (2019) tested professional and youth soccer players from a split stance 0.5 m behind the first gate, with single-beam gates at 1 m height.
| Group | 10 m | 20 m |
|---|---|---|
| Professional | 1.75 s | 3.03 s |
| Under-19 | 1.72 s | 2.99 s |
Compare yourself with these only if you test the same way, because a different start gives different times.
How much the start changes your time
Over 40 m, Haugen et al. (2012) compared start methods against a block start with a gun:
| Start | Faster than a block start by |
|---|---|
| Three-point, timed from hand release | 0.17 s |
| Standing, timed from the first gate | 0.27 s |
| Standing, timed from a foot pad | 0.69 s |
Distance behind the first gate matters as much. In Haugen and Buchheit's review of sprint testing, moving from 0.5 m to 1.5 m behind the first gate made 10 m times 0.13-0.15 s faster. For a test you repeat, mark the start with tape and use the same stance every time.
Timing it with Sprintbrick
Sprintbrick starts the clock when the sensor on your lower back has moved 0.5 m from where you were set, and reports your 10, 20 and 30 m splits, plus the yard splits, from the same rep. You can tag reps as 10, 20 or 30 m accelerations, and the app keeps your best split at each distance.
We're still refining how Sprintbrick times the start. Against OVR gates, our 10-20 m and 20-40 m segments agreed within 50 ms on every rep, while the 0-10 m split read 0.04 to 0.09 s slower than the gates in our latest session. If you track 10 m times today, compare Sprintbrick with Sprintbrick, not with gate times. Full results.