Reliability and validity of My Jump 2® app to measure the vertical jump in visually impaired five-a-side soccer athletes

Abstract

Background: Although My Jump 2 ^® consistently presented excellent values of reliability and validity when compared to force platforms (FPs) and contact mats, to date no scientific investigation assessed the validity and reliability of My Jump 2 ^® to measure jump height in visually impaired five-a-side soccer athletes. Thus, the study aimed at analyzing the validity and reliability of the My Jump 2^® to measure the vertical jump of five-a-side soccer athletes.

Methods: Twelve visually impaired five-a-side soccer athletes, volunteered for this study. Each player performed five countermovement jumps (CMJs) and squat jumps (SJs) on a contact platform (CP) while they were simultaneously recorded using My Jump 2 ^®.

Results: There was almost perfect agreement between the My Jump 2^® and the contact platform measurements of CMJ (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.99; p < 0.001) and SJ (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.99; p < 0.001), heights for athletes during the first and second measurement days. Bland-Altman analysis showed a bias of 0.25 ± 0.5 cm; maximum SD = 1.3; minimum SD = -0.88 for CMJ, while that Bland-Altman analysis showed bias 0.18 ± 0.5 cm; maximum SD = 1.3; minimum SD = -0.96, for SJ.

Conclusion: We can conclude that the My Jump 2^® is a valid and reliable method to measure CMJ and SJ in visually impaired five-a-side soccer athletes.

Keywords: Athletes; Motion analysis; People with visual impairment; Physical performance; Testing.

Figure 1. Bland-Altman plots of CP and My Jump 2^® (A) CMJ and (B) SJ height data.

The central line represents the absolute mean difference between the instruments, whereas the upper and the lower lines represent ±1.96 SD. R² values shows that there was no proportion bias error.