AI generated image

Main authors: Fernando Domínguez-Navarro, José Casaña, Borja Pérez-Domínguez, Borja Ricart-Luna, Pedro Cotolí-Suárez and Joaquín Calatayud.

In women’s basketball training, lower train injuries are the most frequent, especially knee and ankle ones. Preventing them and improving the players’ functional capacity is a priority for both trainers and medical teams.

The Single Leg Hop Test is one of the most common ways to assess this function by simply testing a person’s ability to hop on one leg and stabilise the fall. Although, which physical factors best explain the performance from young elite female athletes in this test?

A study conducted by the Universitat de València, the Universidad Europea de Valencia and the Valencia Basket Alqueria LAB analysed 90 female teen players from ages 13 to 17. Their goal was to discover which variables best predict the results from the hop test.

Study design

The players were assessed with the three following tests in the preseason: 

• Countermovement Jump (CMJ): to measure the explosive strength of their lower bodies.
• Y Balance Test: to test their dynamic balance.
• Single Leg Hop Test: the main test during which they had to hop horizontally as far as they could on one leg and stabilised their fall.

Other anthropometrical variables such as size, weight and body mass index were also measured.

Main findings

• Explosiveness as a key factor. The results from the CMJ (jump height and power generated) were the most consistent predictors in the hop test performance.
• The role of balance. The Y Balance Test showed moderate correlations, especially on the left leg, which confirms that posture control influences hopping and landing skills.
• Irrelevant anthropometry. Height, weight or leg length showed no significant correlation to the hop test.
• Multifactorial approach. The hop test does not depend only on physical capacities, but with explosive strength integration, balance, and neuromuscular control.

Practical applications

• Coaches: to incorporate plyometric and balance trainings to improve both performance and injury prevention.
• Strength and conditioning coaches: to use the hop test as well as the CMJ and the Y Balance Test as function monitoring tools during the season.
• Sports clubs and doctors: to understand that the differences performance differences in the hop test are not explained by basic physical characteristics, but rather by neuromuscular capacity.

Conclusion: training beyond strength

This study confirms that for young elite female players, their performance in the hop test mainly depends on their explosive strength and less on their dynamic balance.

Therefore, including specific plyometric and posture control training programmes can set the difference both in performance improvement and in injury risk reduction.

This project is part of the Basketball Chair – Universitat de València line of research, which seeks to provide applied sciences in order to improve the health and the performance of new generations of players.

Learn more