Reliability, Validity and Usefulness of a New Response Time Test for Agility-Based Sports: A Simple vs. Complex Motor...

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Human Movement Analysis
• Athletic Performance

Background:

• Response time (RT) is crucial in sports, yet validated sport-specific tools for trained athletes are scarce.
• Existing RT measures may not adequately capture the complexities of athletic movements.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the validity, reliability, and usefulness of four novel RT testing protocols.
• To compare RT performance between athletes from agility-saturated (AG) and non-agility-saturated (NAG) sports.

Main Methods:

• Developed and administered three simple response time (SRT) and one complex response time (CRT) protocol.
• Utilized sensors to measure RT across different limb and body movements.
• Calculated intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) for reliability and used t-tests, effect size (d), and AUC for validity.

Main Results:

• Newly developed RT tests demonstrated higher reliability and usefulness in AG athletes compared to NAG athletes.
• AG athletes exhibited significantly faster CRT performance than NAG athletes across all sensor locations.
• No significant RT differences were found between AG and NAG athletes in SRT tests.
• Weak correlations between SRT and CRT suggest distinct motor capacities.

Conclusions:

• Agility-saturated athletes possess superior response time capabilities in complex motor tasks.
• The developed CRT protocols are effective in differentiating RT performance between AG and NAG athletes.
• Enhanced ability to rapidly reprogram complex movements is a key attribute for agility sports performance.