PEAK VERTICAL JUMP POWER ESTIMATIONS IN YOUTHS AND YOUNG ADULTS

Amonette, WE, Brown, LE, De Witt, JK, Dupler, TL, Tran, TT, Tufano, JJ, and Spiering, BA. Peak vertical jump power estimations in youths and young adults. J Strength Cond Res 26(7): 1749-1755, 2012-The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a regression equation to estimate peak power (PP) using a large sample of athletic youths and young adults. Anthropometric and vertical jump ground reaction forces were collected from 460 male volunteers (age: 12-24 years). Of these 460 volunteers, a stratified random sample of 45 subjects representing 3 different age groups (12-15 years [n = 15], 16-18 years [n = 15], and 19-24 years [n = 15]) was selected as a validation sample. Data from the remaining 415 subjects were used to develop a new equation (Novel) to estimate PP using age, body mass (BM), and vertical jump height (VJH) via backward step-wise regression. Independently, age (r = 0.57), BM (r = 0.83), and VJ (r = 0.65) were significantly (p < 0.05) correlated with PP. However, age did not significantly (p = 0.53) contribute to the final prediction equation (Novel): PP (watts) = 63.6 x VJH (centimeters) + 42.7 x BM (kilograms) - 1,846.5 (r = 0.96; standard error of the estimate = 250.7 W). For each age group, there were no differences between actual PP (overall group mean +/- SD: 3,244 +/- 991 W) and PP estimated using Novel (3,253 +/- 1,037 W). Conversely, other previously published equations produced PP estimates that were significantly different than actual PP. The large sample size used in this study (n = 415) likely explains the greater accuracy of the reported Novel equation compared with previously developed equations (n = 17-161). Although this Novel equation can accurately estimate PP values for a group of subjects, between-subject comparisons estimating PP using Novel or any other previously published equations should be interpreted with caution because of large intersubject error (+/- >600 W) associated with predictions.