A New Agility Test for Adults: Its Test–Retest Reliability and Minimal Detectable Change in Untrained Women and Men Aged 28–55

Abstract

Manderoos, SA, Vaara, ME, Mäki, PJ, Mälkiä, EA, Aunola, SK, and Karppi, S-L. A new agility test for adults: its test-retest reliability and minimal detectable change in untrained women and men aged 28-55. J Strength Cond Res 30(8): 2226-2234, 2016-The aims of this study were to present a new Agility Test for Adults (ATA), to investigate its test-retest reliability and to quantify minimal detectable change at the 95% confidence interval (MDC95). Both the relative and absolute reliabilities were evaluated. Altogether 52 healthy untrained volunteers (25 women: age 43.3 ± 6.6 years; 27 men: age 42.8 ± 7.2 years) were recruited into the study. The subjects performed 3 ATA tests repeated after 2 different intervals: the first test session was baseline, session 2 was a week later, and session 3 was half an hour after session 2. The intraclass correlation coefficient and the SEM of the performance time of ATA were 0.91 and 0.27 seconds (same day), 0.94 and 0.20 seconds (1 week) for women, and 0.95, 0.13 seconds, and 0.94, 0.19 seconds for men, respectively. MDC95 was 0.76 seconds (same day) and 0.56 seconds (1 week) for women, and respectively 0.37 and 0.51 seconds for men. The results showed that ATA is stable and reliable when evaluating agility characteristics in untrained adults. The properties of ATA make it appropriate for screening people to find early signs of declined agility and allow possibility to clinicians and physical trainers to monitor true changes in performance time at agility test by applying the knowledge of MDC95 coefficient. Furthermore, ATA can give tips for planning appropriate exercise programes to prevent clumsiness and falls with more serious consequences among aging people.