Abstract

Agility performance tests are limited by the requirement for force plates, timing gates or expensive camera systems making application into practice challenging. The primary aim of this study was to assess the inter-rater reliability of a field based 1v1 agility test encompassing perceptual-action performance. A secondary aim was to assess the relationship between the 1v1 agility tests with a range of physical performance tests including a commonly used Y step test. The third aim was to contrast the physical performance of high performing players against lower performing players in terms of agility action performance. Twenty-eight male rugby union players volunteered (age 19.3 ± 2.2 years, age range 18-24, body mass 96.5 ± 13.3 kg). Participants were randomly assigned to attack or defensive roles within a simulated rugby evasion task (1v1 agility test). Previously utilized performance scoring (1) was modified to assess agility performance. Two independent investigators reviewed video recordings to score attacking and defensive performance. Cohens Kappa statistic showed inter-rater reliability of agility scoring to be almost perfect, 861 (CI 0.816 to 0.917). Attacking agility had a large significant relationship with Y step performance (r = -0.577, p = 0.001), single leg repeat hop height (r = 0.570, p = 0.002) and body mass (r = -0.537, p = 0.003). Defensive agility outcome had a large significant relationship with CMJ flight time-contraction time ratio (r = 0.580, p = 0.001) and CMJ concentric duration (r = -0.656, p = 0.000). The Y step test shares 33% of common variance with 1v1 attacking and 5% with defensive agility performance likely due to significantly greater frontal and transverse plane movement during agility compared to the change of direction tests. We recommended the 1v1 agility test be included as part of physical profiling of team sports players.

Authors and Affiliations