What does CAP Offer? Testing Service Athleticism Testing: There are several types of testing that we will do this season. The first type will discuss is the athleticism testing. We define these types of tests as those things that directly impact your “athleticism” on the field. For instance, how high you jump, how fast you run, and how quickly you change direction. We have consulted dozens of coaches, testing agencies, researching organizations and colleges and they all seem to come up with the same 4 tests. Here are the tests that we use to determine athleticism (speed, agility, power):
It is our opinion that the more data you have the better off you are. Without question, if we forget to test something at the beginning of the season, we ALWAYS wish we would have by the end of the season. But never once have we looked back and wished we had not spent the time testing. The reason we do all of these tests is simply due to the fact that all athletes are different and some will undoubtedly do better in some areas than others. So if we just used one type of lower body power test (vertical over standing long jump), we might not be getting the best picture of what the athlete is capable of doing. We have some athletes that run an extremely fast 20 yd dash, but are terrible in the 20 yd shuttle. This tells us a lot about what weaknesses they have and what we need to do to improve their play. If this is the case (fast 20 and slow 20 yd shuttle) have speed, but most likely lack the strength or mechanics to efficiently control that speed in a directional change which could potentially lead to injuries. Here is a breakdown of each of the testing exercises we use to assess pure athleticism:
What does this test tell us about your performance? If you perform well for your age group, we might assume that you have good strength levels for your height and weight. If you perform poorly for your age group, we might assume that you are lacking the strength to get your body off the ground and therefore are probably lacking that powerful burst that starts your acceleration on the field. Vertical Jump Tests do not just assess your ability to jump, but they also give us insight about how much power your lower body is able to produce (starting speed, acceleration, cutting, quickness, strength, etc)
What we can learn from the Standing Long Jump Test? Not only do we look at starting power, but also how well they control their body. We may have the testing administrator looking at the actual distance of the jump, while the biomechanics coach or sport specific coach would be looking at how well they control the landing of the jump. Many athletes are capable of producing power, but are not able to control it. For example, if you are explosive enough to jump out 7 feet or so, but when you hit the ground your posture caves, your knees turn inward, and your have trouble “catching” yourself, we might assume that you lack the strength to control your own power. Or that you don’t understand the mechanics of landing or decelerating, which can show up in our agility drills. This will not only put you at risk for injury, but also limit your potential on the field.
What can we learn from timing a 20 yd Sprint? This is not a “speed” test, where we are able to accurately measure the athletes’ ability to reach and maintain top end “speed”, but instead it is a test of starting strength and acceleration. We believe it to be a much more functional test than a 40 or 100 yd dash. Many sports only require that the athlete accelerate for 20 yards or so. For example: Basketball (the court is only 25-30 yards long baseline to baseline so assuming that the athlete would accelerate for longer than 20 yards with out a directional change is unreasonable), Softball (home to first is 20 yards), Baseball (home to first is 30 yards), Football (very rarely do players accelerate for more than 20 yards without a directional change), Soccer (the game is made up of repeat stops and starts with players very rarely reaching top end speed), Volleyball, Tennis, Hockey, Wrestling, etc (no need to every work on sprint form). So with all this in mind, the 20 yd Sprint test seems like the best measurement for team sport athletes when assessing linear speed and/or acceleration.
What can we learn from the 20 yd Shuttle Test? This is our agility test. We believe that agility is made up of 4 components: 1) Reaction (how fast do you react to your environment or anticipate situations), 2) strength-power (how well can you use your strength to stop your self efficiently and how well do you power out of this stop), 3) quickness (how quickly can you position and reposition your feet for efficiency) and 4) body position (how well do you control your posture and momentum – body control in and out of cutting movements). Because each of these things feed into agility we feel that this test is a great determiner of all of them. We will have our biomechanics coach or sport specific coach watch for each of these things as the players run through this test. We will then pull the athlete aside and discuss with them what we see and how they need to improve. This test may be one of our best predictors of sports performance as well as potential for injury, as fast players that can’t control their speed or body position tend to get themselves into situations that set them up for injury. We then enter these speed and agility tests into a data base and assess the outcome. Here are some of our records (over 2000 athletes tested):
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| © 2006 Centers for Athletic Performance | ||
Vertical Jump: The vertical jump test is used due to its widely accepted intra-subject reliability and the fact that it does not require high motor ability and can easily performed by children. It is one of the most accepted tests of lower body power production. Each athlete is given 4 attempts in a jump and reach (counter movement jump - with no step) using a Vertek © device. The best jump is recorded. At left is a picture.
Standing Long Jump: This is another way of measuring lower body power used by speed coaches to look at how much “starting power” the athlete can produce. This should give you a good indication of the player’s quickness and reaction potential as well as the functional use of their strength. We have the athletes stand behind a line and lay down a tape measure starting at their toes. They then jump out as far as possible and we record the closest part of their body to the starting line (usually their heels unless they fall backward and then we would be forced to mark where their hands hit). We give them 3 attempts and record the best jump.
20 Yd Sprint: We use a Newtest Powertimer© photocell system with a link to a palm monitor to time each player in a 20yd sprint using a switch to start and a photocell at the 20yd mark. The timers are accurate to .001 s. Each subject is timed 3 times with a 60-90 s rest in between runs. Reliability of hand timed sprints of this distance is very poor, so we have switched all speed testing to photocell timing.
20 yd Shuttle (COD): Using the same timing system, we test each athlete in a 20 yd Shuttle Test (20 yd Pro Agility or 5-10-5 test) using a switch to start and a photocell at the finish line. Use one cone for the start, then place one cone 5 yards to the right and the other 5 yards to the left. Have the athlete start with his hand on the start (middle) cone and then have him sprint to the cone to the right, touch it, then sprint back 10 yards to the cone on the left, touch it, then sprint back through the finish line. Each athlete is timed 3 times with a 60-90 s rest in between runs.