VALIDITY, RELIABILITY AND CORRELATES OF FUTSAL-SPECIFIC PRE-PLANNED AND NON-PLANNED AGILITY TESTING PROTOCOLS

The importance of agility in futsal is already recognized, but there is an evident lack of information about applicability of futsal specific tests. The aim of this study was to evaluate reliability, validity and correlates of tests evaluating the futsal specific pre-planned agility (PPA), and non-planned agility (NPA). The sample comprised 40 professional futsal players who were tested on newly developed tests of PPA and NPA, sprint over 10 meters, countermovement jump, body height and mass. The reliability analyses included calculation of intra-session Cronbach Alpha (CA) and Inter-Item-Correlation (IIR), as well as analysis (ANOVA) for repeated measurements. Differences between performance groups (starters [first team] vs. non-starters [substitutes]) were evidenced by t-test for independent samples and calculation of Effect Size differences (ES). Pearson’s product moment correlation was calculated to define associations between variables. The reliability of agility tests was appropriate, with somewhat better reliability of PPA (CA: 0.81 and 0.76, IIR: 0.79 and 0.72, for PPA and NPA, respectively). ANOVA did not reveal any significant differences among testing trials. Starters were had better PPA than non-starters (t-test: 1.98, p < 0.01, moderate ES). The PPA and NPA shared less than 40% of the common variance, which suggests that these capacities are independent. Jumping and sprinting were not significantly correlated to PPA and NPA. Study confirmed appropriate reliability of the newly developed tests, and applicability of the PPA in distinguishing performance-levels. Further studies in females and younger players are warranted.