Testing Athleticism

February marks another rite of passage for aspiring athletes. Every year, sports performance “gurus” prepare their athletes for the National Football League’s combine. Professional football prospects and team representatives descend upon Indianapolis, Indiana. There the athletes are put through a battery of physical drills and psychological tests attempting to identify elite players, determine their draft status, and predict eventual success on the field. Yet, according to a study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (Kuzmits and Adams, 2008), there is no consistent statistical relationship between combine tests and professional football performance. This is consistent with studies in other sports, such as handball (Lidor et al, 2005), rugby (Gabbett et al, 2007), and ice hockey (Vescovi et al, 2006). These studies noted that only the players’ skills, not their physiological characteristics were predictors of their playing ability. In other words, the only true measurement of an athlete’s performance on the field… is his performance on the field.

This is not to say that testing of athleticism does not have its’ place. Vern Gambetta defines athleticism as the ability to execute athletic movements at optimum speed with precision, style, and grace in the context of the sport or activity. These characteristics are all related to movement efficiency. Therefore, athleticism, by its’ very nature, aids and fine-tunes the performance of sports skills.

Analyzing athletic properties can provide a profile of an individual’s strengths and weaknesses. This is particularly true if the results are compared to the player’s performance. For example, let’s say that a right-handed pitcher is tested in the “5-10-5 Agility”. His score is rated as average when compared to other players of his performance level. However, further investigation notes that this pitcher is 0.1 seconds slower when moving to his left compared to the right. In terms of performance, the pitcher’s coach routinely works with him on locating his fastball to the far corner of the plate. One explanation of the pitcher’s poor performance on this task may be a lack of hip mobility when rotating his pelvis and trunk to the left. Decreased hip rotation can disrupt the sequential timing of events needed to place the throwing arm in the correct position to execute the throw. This ultimately results in poor efficiency of the movement and limited precision of the outcome (i.e. the inability to hit the outside corner of the plate).

Although athleticism may not predict future success in sports, it can be a useful tool in the enhancement of the skills needed for successful sports performance.