Heliyon
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From standing in a parallel stance, two common techniques for sprint starts are forward and false steps. In the forward step technique, athletes take a first step in the sprinting direction; in the false step technique, the first step is in the opposite direction to the sprinting direction. Although the false step technique, including a redundant step, has generally been considered as an inferior technique, athletes habitually use it to start sprinting in a forward direction. ⋯ In the rightward sprint start trials, 27 trials were done using the forward step technique and 18 using the false step technique. While the false step technique was used significantly more than the forward step technique in the backward sprint start trials (p < 0.001), no significant difference was found between the use of either technique in the rightward sprint start trials (p = 0.18). The results demonstrate that high-level male soccer players habitually use the false step technique in a backward sprint start and use both techniques with similar frequencies in a sideward sprint start.