Overview Power, Speed, Force, Strength are all important for athletic performance in every athlete from every different sport. Their individual needs alongside the sport needs are required to be assessed to establish the correct strength and conditioning programme for that individual. This article looks at one of those components “Rate of Force Development” and attempts to put it into perspective against another very import factor for most athletes, the strength component. What is "Rate of Force Development"? The rate of force development (RFD) is a measure of explosive strength, or basically how fast an athlete can develop force. Therefore the ‘rate’ of ‘force development’ in physiology ter