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Sex Differences In Running Performance: The Role Of The Anaerobic Speed Reserve In Female Middle-Distance Running, Lydia Charlotte Hallam

Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences ETDs

Middle-distance running is an interesting domain in which to study sex differences in athletic performance because of the varied metabolic, mechanical and tactical demands. The Anaerobic Speed Reserve (ASR) represents the difference between an athlete’s maximal sprint speed (MSS) and maximal aerobic speed (MAS). The ASR and MSS are key determinants of elite male 800m performance (Sandford et al., 2018); however, the role of the ASR in female middle-distance running is unclear, considering sex differences in physiology, mechanics and competition factors. We found that sub-groups of female middle-distance runners could be distinguished using the ASR and speed reserve ratio (SRR …