Association and predictive abilityof vertical countermovement jump performance on unilateral agility in recreationally trained individuals

Introduction: Many sporting activities require both vertical jumping in combination with agility. Yet, both vertical jumping and agility can be executed either bilaterally or unilaterally.Problem Statement and Approach:There exist no literature exploring the association between unilateral agility with vertical jump performance variables.Thus, the purpose of this study was todetermine associationsand predictive ability between performance measures during unilateral and bilateral vertical countermovement jumpswith unilateral agility measures.Material and Method: Thirty recreationally active adults participated in two non-consecutive sessions. During the first session,participants completed three trials of right-sideunilateral countermovement jumps, left-side unilateral countermovement jumps, and bilateral countermovement jumpsin a randomized order. All jumps were performed akimbo, on force platforms, withthirty seconds of rest between trials. During the second session,participantscompleted two distinct unilateral agilitymaneuvers:single leg up three-back one and single leg cross hops, and were given two trials for each maneuver with thirty seconds rest between trials. The average of all completed trials for all countermovement jumps and agility maneuvers were used for statistical analysis. Spearman’sR correlation were used to find significant associations between completion time for the agility maneuvers and jump height, peak force, relative force, peak power, relative peak power, and landing force for all countermovement jumpconditions. Results:There were significant correlations between the cross hop and up three-back one agility maneuver completion time with countermovement jump height, peak force, peak power, relative peak power, and landing force during both unilateral and bilateral jumps. Conclusions:There appears to be an association between certain performance measures during bilateral and unilateral countermovement jumpsand unilateral agility. Peak power and landing force assist in predicting unilateral agility completion time. Therefore, coaches may desire to implement unilateral jumping with individuals necessitating single leg agility to complete their desired exercise or sport activity.