Evaluation of the inter- and intra-rater reliability of the Finnish Gymnastics Federation's Strength Tests: A Test-Retest

Abstract

Competing gymnasts have a high risk of injury due to the large amount of training hours and the demands of the sport (Campbell et al. 2019; Thomas & Thomas, 2019). In high level gymnasts, the repetitive performance of gymnastic movements is not enough to gain the optimal levels of strength and power needed within the sport (Deley et al. 2010). An increase in strength levels increases performance and gymnastic skills (Sawczyn et al. 2016; Dallas et al. 2021). Testing sport-like strength is important for young gymnasts and measuring muscle strength is an important performance parameter (Osmala et al. 2021; Gasparetto, 2022). There are no current such testing batteries available, therefore there is a need for meaningful, reliable, and sensitive outcome gymnastic-specific fitness tests (Salse-Batán et al. 2022). This test-retest evaluates the inter- and intra-rater reliability of the Finnish Gymnastics Federation’s strength tests with a twoday time interval between the testing days. This evaluation is the very first step in building an evidencebased test battery to monitor athletes in any sport. These tests are designed for aesthetic group gymnasts and rhythmic gymnasts with the purpose of measuring gymnasts’ sport-specific strength and performance. Tester one was more reliable between the two testers and the results on the second testing day were more reliable compared to the first testing day. In addition, there was a slight decline in the overall score on the second testing day meaning the athletes performed with higher scores on the first testing day. When analysing the athletes total scores, there can be seen an agreement between the measurements of the two testers, showing the athlete’s total scores correlating with each other’s. The overall strength tests scores can be used to identify those athletes with lower and higher overall strength. ICC-values for the athlete’s total scores varied between testers 0.880–0.855 and between testing days 0.891-0.957 meaning good to excellent reliability based on the 95% confident interval of the ICC estimate. To conclude, clearer guidelines and testing protocols are recommended and more distinctive differences between the scores are needed. Tests assessing leg strength and power are beneficial for the performance and can be used as a tool for injury prevention in AGG, therefore should be added to the future test battery. Three strength tests out of nine have proven to be reliable and have a high sport specificity. Athlete's total scores of the current strength tests can be used to identify "stronger" and "weaker" athletes based on the reliable results found in this study. An athlete identification tool was created to identify stronger to weaker athletes. This tool is simple to use, easy to implement and is designed to benefit and support the athlete.