The Development and Preliminary Validation of a Rhythmic Jumping Task for Coordination Assessment: A Task Design...

Background: The coordination between the upper and lower limbs is essential for athletic performance. However, the structural features that influence coordination difficulty remain insufficiently understood. Few studies have systematically analyzed how task components such as the directional congruence or rhythm structure affect inter-limb coordination. Objective: This study aimed to clarify the structural factors that influence the difficulty of upper-lower limb coordination tasks under rhythmic constraints and to explore the feasibility of applying such tasks in future coordination assessments. Methods: Eighty-six male high school baseball players performed six Rhythm Jump tasks combining fixed upper limb movements with varying lower limb patterns. The task performance was analyzed using three indices: full task success, partial success, and average successful series. One year later, a follow-up test involving 27 participants was conducted to evaluate the reproducibility and sensitivity to the performance change. Results: The task difficulty was significantly affected by structural features, including directional incongruence, upper limb static holding, and rhythmic asynchrony. The tasks that exhibited these features had lower success rates. Some tasks demonstrated moderate reproducibility and captured subtle longitudinal changes in the performance. Conclusions: The results highlight the key structural factors contributing to coordination difficulty and support the potential applicability of Rhythm Jump tasks as a basis for future assessment tools. Although further validation is necessary, this study provides foundational evidence for the development of practical methods for evaluating inter-limb coordination.