A Comparison between the Wingate Anaerobic Power Test to Both Vertical Jump and Line Drill Tests in Basketball Players

The purpose of this study was to compare 2 sport-specific field tests common in the training programs of basketball players to a laboratory measure of anaerobic power. Nine 17-year-old members of the Israel National Youth Basketball Team participated in this investigation. Field tests included a countermovement jump (CMJ), a 15-second anaerobic jump test (APJT), and a sprint test to assess anaerobic power (line drill). The line drill was performed 3 times (T1, T2, and T3) with a 2-minute passive rest between each sprint. In addition, all subjects performed a 30-second Wingate anaerobic power test (WAnT) to determine peak power (PP), mean power (MP), and fatigue index (FI_WAnT). Kendall tau (τ) rank correlation analysis revealed moderate positive rank correlations between MP and both T1 and T2 (τ = 0.61 and 0.54, respectively). No significant rank correlations were observed between PP and the line drill. Significant (p ≤ 0.05) positive rank correlations were noted between CMJ and both PP and MP (τ = 0.59 and 0.76, respectively). However, only a poor relationship (p > 0.05) was observed between APJT and both PP and MP (τ = 0.20 and 0.28, respectively). These results suggest that the line drill and jump tests may be acceptable field measures of anaerobic power specific for basketball players.