Generic and sport-specific reactive agility tests assess different qualities in court-based team sport athletes

AIM: Comparisons between reactive agility tests incorporating generic and sport-specific stimuli have been performed only in field-based team sports. The aim of this study was to compare generic (light­based) and sport-specific (live opponent) reactive agility tests in court­based team sport athletes. METHODS: Twelve semi-professional male basketball players (age: 25.9 ± 6.7 yr; stature: 188.9 ± 7.9 cm; body mass: 97.4 ± 16.1 kg; predicted maximal oxygen uptake: 49.5 ± 5.3 mL∙kg­1∙min­1) completed multiple trials of a Reactive Agility Test containing light­based (RAT­Light) and opponent­based stimuli (RAT-Opponent). Multiple outcome measures were collected during the RAT­Light (agility time and total time) and RAT-Opponent (decision time and total time). RESULTS: Mean performance times during the RAT­Light (2.233 ± 0.224 s) were significantly (P < 0.001) slower than during the RAT-Opponent (1.726 ± 0.178 s). Further, a small relationship was observed between RAT­Light agility time and RAT-Opponent decision time (r10 = 0.20), while a trivial relationship was apparent between total performance times across tests (r10 = 0.02). Low commonality was observed between comparable measures across tests (R2 = 0-­4%). CONCLUSION: Reactive agility tests containing light-based and live opponent stimuli appear to measure different qualities in court­based team sport athletes. Court-based team sport coaches and conditioning professionals should not use generic and sport­specific reactive agility tests interchangeably during athlete assessments.