Within - and between - session reliability of the spider drill test to assess Change of Direction Speed in youth tennis athletes

Agility or Change of Direction Speed (CODS) is a critical physical attribute in a sport such as tennis, which is categorised by frequent and multiple changes of direction. Recently a CODS test called the ‘spider drill’ has been used to assess tennis athletes’ ability to change direction. To the authors’ knowledge, no study has solely assessed its reliability and compared this with other commonly-used CODS tests; thus, this was the aim of the study. Ten nationally ranked youth tennis athletes (age: 15.1 ± 2.6; mass: 66.4 + 17.2 kg; height: 163.0 + 16.2 cm) completed three trials of the spider drill, modified t-test and pro-agility test on two separate testing occasions. All CODS tests had low typical percentage error, both within-sessions (CV = 1.8 - 4.1%), and between session (CV = 1.2 - 3.7%). The SEM was also consistent within tests both within- and between- testing sessions. Within-session test-retest consistency illustrates strong reliability for the spider drill (ICC = 0.93, 0.95), modified t-test (ICC = 0.79, 0.83), however for pro-agility session 2 fell outside of the accepted threshold (ICC = 0.88, 0.69). These trends were similar when assessing between-session consistency, with both the spider drill and modified t-test providing high levels of reliability (ICC = 0.95 and 0.97 respectively). However, the pro-agility fell outside of the accepted threshold (ICC = 0.66), with 95% confidence intervals wide-ranging in nature (95% CI: 0.11 - 0.9). These results suggest that the spider drill and modified t-test are both reliable tests when measuring CODS within youth tennis athletes. Strength and conditioning practitioners could consider changes in excess of ± 1.1% as meaningful (based off the SDD) when assessing CODS through the spider drill or modified t-test within youth tennis athletes

Match Demands of Male and Female International Lacrosse Players Competing Under the World Lacrosse Sixes Format

Weldon, A, Owen, AL, Loturco, I, Kyriacou, Y, Wong, W, Malone, S, Sampaio, J, and Scanlan, AT. Match demands of male and female international lacrosse players competing under the World Lacrosse Sixes format. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000–000, 2022—World Lacrosse recently announced World Lacrosse Sixes, which aims to be a smaller, faster, and more accessible format of lacrosse, when compared with traditional field lacrosse. This investigation aimed to quantify the movement and physiological demands of World Lacrosse Sixes in male (n = 25) and female (n = 22) international players. Match data were collected using Catapult Sports Vector S7 global navigation satellite system microsensors and Polar H1 heart rate (HR) monitors across 7 competitive matches. Results showed that 30–33% of the total distance covered by players was completed by walking (0–2 m·s−1), 42–44% jogging (2–4 m·s−1), 21% running (4–6 m·s−1), and 0–2% sprinting (\u3e6 m·s−1). Mean relative HR (%HRmax) was similar (p \u3e 0.05, ηp2 role= presentation style= box-sizing: inherit; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; \u3eηp2ηp2 = 0.002; no effect) between sexes across matches (median values: male players = 93.5%; female players = 93.8%). Male players performed more accelerations (p \u3c 0.001; ηp2 role= presentation style= box-sizing: inherit; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; \u3eηp2ηp2 = 0.117; moderate) and decelerations at ±4 m·s−2 (p \u3c 0.001; ηp2 role= presentation style= box-sizing: inherit; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; \u3eηp2ηp2 = 0.135; moderate) and distance sprinting at \u3e6 m·s−1 (p \u3c 0.001; ηp2 role= presentation style= box-sizing: inherit; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; \u3eηp2ηp2 = 0.416; large) than female players. Whereas female players performed more accelerations (p \u3c 0.001; ηp2 role= presentation style= box-sizing: inherit; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; \u3eηp2ηp2 = 0.20; large) and decelerations at ±2–3 m·s−2 (p \u3c 0.001; ηp2 role= presentation style= box-sizing: inherit; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; \u3eηp2ηp2 = 0.33; large) and impacts at 5–9 g-forces (p \u3c 0.033; ηp2 role= presentation style= box-sizing: inherit; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; \u3eηp2ηp2 = 0.063; moderate) than male players. These data are the first representing the movement and physiological demands of male and female players in World Lacrosse Sixes, allowing lacrosse coaches and the athlete support team to make informed and sex-specific decisions when developing training, testing, and tactical strategies to optimize player health and performance