Fitness testing and measuring the components of fitness GapFill

Components of fitness should be carefully monitored and measured to assess progress, health and fitness of an individual. This can be important for recreational athletes as well as professional athletes. This can be achieved by fitness testing. There are fitness tests available which measure each component of fitness; however, there are limitations to fitness testing which should be considered. Let's investigate these limitations further.

• Many tests are not  athlete-specificsport-specificage-specificlocation-specific and are deemed too general to represent the actual skills being performed in the sport. For example,  muscular endurancespeedreaction timecoordination is measured by the Ruler Drop Test, which requires the subject to react to the dropping of a ruler between their fingers, yet not all sports require hand-eye coordination in quite the same way.

• Many tests may not replicate the movements involved in the sport. For example, flexibility is measured by the  Stork Stand TestSit and Reach TestOne-rep Max TestIllinois Agility Test, which requires subjects to reach forward across a box as far as they possibly can, yet not all sports require flexibility of the lower back and  hamstringship flexorstricepsquadriceps.

• Many tests do not  recuperatereinstatereplicaterugby the conditions faced when in a competitive situation. For example, fitness tests are set up relatively within their own time outside of the sport, and subjects are often given two or three  cluesattemptsfriendsweeks to try to complete the test before their final result is recorded and compared against normative data.

•  PsychologyValidityPhysiologyReliability refers to whether the test measures what it intends to measure and is dependent on correct procedures being adopted and good knowledge of the  testernursecompetitiondoctor. For example, if the Illinois Agility Test was incorrectly set up by the tester, such as by measuring out an incorrect distance, this may cause some subjects to run further or less than others, which would give inaccurate results when comparing.

•  ReliabilityPhysiologyValidityPsychology refers to whether the results can be trusted. For example, a lot of the tests require maximal effort to complete to test participants' fitness levels. However, some participants may not provide full effort; for example an athlete may drop out at an earlier level when measuring cardiovascular endurance during the  Stork Stand Testwall Toss TestSprint TestMulti-stage fitness Test. It also relies on the tester measuring results accurately.