Evaluation of Explosive Strength for Young and Adult Athletes

Abstract The explosive strengths of young (n = 361) and adult (n = 10) male athletes were evaluated by a vertical jumping and a ball-throwing test. The young athletes ranged in age from 10 to 16 years representing seven different sports events: track and field, apparatus gymnastics, basketball, ice hockey, orienteering, skiing, and wrestling. The adult subjects were volleyball players. Weighted vertical counter-movement jumps were performed on a platform connected to an electronic unit which calculated the height of the rise of the body's center of gravity. For the stationary ball throwing test, horizontal throwing velocity was measured for balls of different masses by an electrical apparatus. In addition to the new jumping and throwing tests a subgroup of 48 track and field athletes were measured doing jump and reach, standing broad jump, and throwing distance tests. The new jumping test was found to give reliable results from 11–12 years of age and older while the throwing test results were reliable at 10 years of age. Interevent differences in reliability were minor in the throwing test while, in the jumping test, apparatus gymnasts achieved the most reliable results and the wrestlers the least reliable results. The reliabilities for throwing lighter objects and jumping with lighter loads were better than for the heavier objects and loads, as measured by the coefficient of variation. The results of the new jumping and throwing tests showed rather high correlations (r = .66–.82), as compared with the respective traditional field tests.