The reliability and validity of the reactive agility t-test

by Julian Smith, Adam Sayers and Alan Nevill
Saturday 01st October 2011 - Article 0

There is currently no ‘gold standard’ for testing agility, and a variety of tests are reported in the literature. Until recently, most tests of agility required participants to complete planned movements, or closed skills, and did not require a response to a stimulus. The purpose of the current study, therefore, was to evaluate the reliability and validity of a field-based test of reactive agility that incorporated both multiple changes of direction and an unpredictable stimulus, which could be easily replicated by the general coaching community. Eighteen soccer players from the USA National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 completed two testing sessions, one week apart. The first testing session required the participants to complete three tests; the Reactive Agility T Test (RATT), the Planned Agility T Test (PATT) and a 30m linear sprint test. The second testing session required the participants to complete the RATT. At test 1, the mean planned agility score (5.82s ± 0.17s) was significantly faster (p < 0.01) than the mean reactive agility score (6.11s ± 0.19s).


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