Context: A detailed analysis of wheelchair basketball skills in beginner wheelchair basketball players (WBP) can provide practitioners with important indications regarding the selection and prospective development of potential sports talents. A comprehensive WBP evaluation can be very time consuming, mainly during the initial phases of the training processes, which could be a barrier in clinical and practical settings. Moreover, the large number and the turnover of beginner WBP attending rehabilitation centers make the applicability of field and strength tests unfeasible.
Objective: To verify the relationships between the medicine ball throw (MBT) and wheelchair basketball mobility performance field tests and the shoulder and trunk peak torque in male and female beginner WBP.
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Setting: Rehabilitation Hospital Network, Paralympic Program.
Participants: Thirty-seven female and male beginner WBP.
Main outcomes measures: Participants performed wheelchair basketball field tests (speed, agility, strength, and power tests) and the maximum strength test in the isokinetic dynamometer. The outcomes were correlated with the MBT results.
Results: The MBT presented significantly very high and perfect correlations with all wheelchair basketball field tests assessed (5-m sprint, 20-m sprint, and zig-zag agility test with and without a ball), and peak torque (R2 ranging from .810 to .995; P ≤ .05) for male and female athletes.
Conclusions: The MBT, a simple and feasible test, can be used for estimating and determining the wheelchair mobility performance of female and male beginner WBP. It is suggested to measure the distance of a 5-kg medicine ball thrown by athletes during training and testing routines to follow the players' progression.
Keywords: athletic perfomance; motor skills; physical fitness; task performance and analysis.