Do the lower body strength assessment tests in the Spanish navy really measure what they purport to measure?

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to analyse the efficacy of lower body strength assessment tests in the Armed Forces Physical Assessment System. Secondly, it was to determine what relationship exists between the physical evaluation system of the Spanish Armed forces and standardized evaluation protocols (Gold standard). A total of 905 students enrolled in the military/civil bachelor’s degree (813 male and 92 female) participated in this study. The influence of the sex of the participants was studied through the student’s t-test for independent data, and the degree of association between variables was defined by Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results present moderate correlations (r = 0.67, r = 0.66; p < 0.001) between the vertical jump test used by the Army and the power or elastic force tests commonly used in practice and in research. The results obtained reflect a moderate relationship between the gold standard tests and the tests used by the Army, which suggests that the tests currently used to assess lower body strength should be adapted to more objective measurement tools which would allow a better comparison between samples from different armed forces.