PERFORMANCE OF AN INSTRUMENTED AGILITY TASK BY COLLEGIATE RUGBY AND ICE HOCKEY PLAYERS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish normative performance measures for an agility task among healthy intercollegiate club rugby and ice hockey players. Agility performance was assessed using the Reactor (Cybex Corp., Ronkankoma, NY), an instrumented testing and training device consisting of 14 large target sensors on the floor interfaced with a video monitor and a computer. Subjects view a map of the targets on the monitor and move to highlighted target sensors as quickly as possible. As subjects touch the appropriate targets with their feet, a new pair of targets is highlighted. A preprogrammed protocol, the “Getback 2-1”, consisting of 25 consecutive moves about the 14 different targets was utilized. Time to complete the agility task was measured for each of three trials and the mean of these trials served as the dependent variable. Thirty-four female rugby players, 23 male rugby players, and 25 male ice hockey players were assessed. A one-factor ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc tests were used to identify performance differences between the three groups. The female rugby players performed the agility task significantly slower than both the male rugby and ice hockey players (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the two groups of male athletes (p>0.05). Mean time to complete the agility task was 29.72 ± 3.01 s for female rugby players, 25.89 ± 3.14 s for male rugby players, and 25.91 ± 2.90 s for male ice hockey players. These results provide normative performance data of this instrumented agility task for male and female collegiate athletes. This testing protocol may be useful in assessing the effects of different training regimens on agility performance or could be used in conjunction with tests of cognition and postural control to form a baseline to better assess the effects of traumatic brain injury in athletes.