Does the short-term learning effect impact vertical jump performance assessment on a portable force plate system?

• Published in: Frontiers in sports and active living 2024-08, Vol.6, p.1441022
• Main Authors: Cabarkapa, Damjana V, Cabarkapa, Dimitrije, Aleksic, Jelena, Ranisavljev, Igor, Fry, Andrew C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: athlete; eccentric; force; monitoring; power; Sports and Active Living; testing
• ISSN: 2624-9367; 2624-9367
• DOI: 10.3389/fspor.2024.1441022

One of the reoccurring questions that arises during the countermovement vertical jump (CVJ) assessment is whether the learning effect has an impact on the accuracy of the results obtained. Thus, the purpose of the present investigation was to examine the impact of the short-term learning effect on the assessment of lower-body neuromuscular performance characteristics when performed on a portable one-dimensional force plate system. Sixteen recreationally active college-age males volunteered to participate in the present study. Each participant completed four sets of three non-consecutive CVJs with no arm swing throughout a single day. Besides strong verbal encouragement, participants were constantly instructed to focus on pushing the ground as explosively as possible. Fourteen force-time metrics were selected for CVJ performance analysis purposes: eccentric and concentric peak and mean force and power, eccentric and concentric duration, contraction time, jump height, reactive strength index-modified, and countermovement depth. Repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance was used to examine statistically significant differences across four testing time points (