Education
Comparing Speed, Agility and Jumping Capabilities
by Salaj, S, and Markovic, G.
Coaches and strength and conditioning professionals should use separate tests for jumping, sprinting and quick change-of-direction motor abilities. From the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
Inconsistent results have been reported when comparing the interrelationships of jumping, sprinting, and change-of-direction speed performances. Such discrepancies may be attributed to the age, gender, and skill level of participants, or to the actual tests being compared and sample sizes used.
A recent study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research hypothesized that there would be relatively small shared variance between jumping, sprinting, and change-of-direction speed performances indicating that these tasks require independent muscle power qualities of each other.
Low to moderate shared variance (6–23%) was reported between the various jumping, sprinting, and change-of-direction tasks. This supports the hypothesis that there is little overlap in the muscle power qualities required for the performance of each task. Therefore, when assessing such qualities in players, coaches and strength and conditioning professionals should use separate tests for each of these qualities to ensure accurate player profiles are developed.
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About the Author
Specificity of jumping, sprinting and quick change-of-direction motor abilities.