The 5th Congress of Exercise and Sport Sciences - The Academic College at Wingate

The Relationships between Two Repeated Activity Tests and Aerobic Fitness of Volleyball Players

Yoav Meckel 1 Moran May-Rom 1,2 Alon Eliakim 1,2
1The Academic College at Wingate, Netanya, Israel
2Meir Medical Center, Kfar-Saba, Israel

Background: In order to examine the ability of athletes to perform intense intermittent activity, repeated activity tests have usually employed rhythmic exercise such as running or cycling. However, in sports such as volleyball jumping serves as the leading type of action during the game (Bergeles et al., 2009). It was also suggested that a higher level of aerobic fitness is required for improved performance during intense intermittent activity (Meckel et al., 2009). The aim of the present study, therefore, was to determine performance indices of the repeated sprint test (RST), and to examine their relationships with performance indices of the repeated jump test (RJT), and with aerobic fitness (VO2 max) among trained volleyball players.

Methods: Sixteen male volleyball players performed RST (6 X 30m sprints), RJT (6 sets of 6 consecutive jumps), and an aerobic power test (20m Shuttle Run Test). Performance indices for the RST and the RJT were: a) ideal 30-m run time (IS), total run time (TS) of the 6 sprints, and performance decrement (PD) during the test; and b) ideal jump height (IJ), total jump height (TJ) of all the jumps, and performance decrement (PD) during the test, respectively.

Results: No significant correlations were found between performance indices of the RST and RJT. Significant correlations were found between PD, IS, and TS in the RST protocol and predicted VO2 max (r= -0.60, -0.75, -0.77, respectively). No significant correlations were found between performance indices of the RJT (IJ, TJ and PD) and predicted VO2 max.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that a selection of repeated activity test protocols should acknowledge the specific technique used in the sport, and that a distinct RJT, rather than the classic RST, is more appropriate for assessing the anaerobic capabilities of volleyball players. The findings also suggest that aerobic fitness plays only a minor role in performance maintenance throughout characteristic repeated jumping activity of a volleyball game.

Yoav Meckel
Yoav Meckel
The Academic College at Wingate








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