Design and Validation of a New Water Polo Test of Anaerobic Endurance: Preliminary Study of Junior Male Players

Abstract

Water polo is a team sport in which anaerobic capacity plays a significant role, but there is a lack of ecologically valid tests of water polo-specific anaerobic capacity. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to design and validate a method for evaluating the anaerobic capacity of water polo players. The sample of participants included 10 male junior water polo players (16.70 ± 1.06 years, 186.11 ± 6.06 cm, 81.18 ± 6.88 kg). Measurements included power output in the Wingate anaerobic test (WAnT) and the newly designed eggbeater kick anaerobic test (EKAT). WAnT included peak power (PP), average power (AP), minimal power (MP), and power drop (PD), and EKAT included the same four parameters as well as anaerobic capacity (AC). The results of this study show a significant correlation between test and retest values of power output (Pearson’s correlation: 0.63, 0.87, 0.85, and 0.90 for PP, AP, MP, and AC, respectively). T-test calculation showed no significant differences between test and retest values for EKAT. Correlation analysis between EKAT and WAnT showed no significant correlation between corresponding power outputs. In conclusion, our results suggest that EKAT has proper metric characteristics, indicating the practical applicability of this test for male water polo players. Further studies on older players and female players are warranted.