Change of Direction Performance and its Physical Determinants Among Young Basketball Male Players

Differences in countermovement vertical jump force-time metrics between starting and non-starting professional male basketball players

With force plates being widely implemented for neuromuscular performance assessment in sport-specific settings and various force-time metrics being able to differentiate athletes based on their performance capabilities, the purpose of the present study was to examine the differences in countermovement vertical jump (CVJ) characteristics between starting and non-starting professional male basketball players (e.g., ABA League). Twenty-three athletes (height = 199.2 ± 7.7 kg, body mass = 94.2 ± 8.2 kg, age = 23.8 ± 4.9 years) volunteered to participate in the present investigation. Upon completion of a standardized warm-up protocol, each athlete performed three maximal-effort CVJs without an arm swing while standing on a uni-axial force plate system sampling at 1,000 Hz. Independent t-tests were used to examine statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) in each force-time metric between starters (n = 10) and non-starters (n = 13). No significant differences in any of the CVJ force-time metrics of interest were observed between the two groups, during both the eccentric and concentric phases of the movement (i.e., impulse, duration, peak velocity, and mean and peak force and power). Moreover, starters and non-starters demonstrated similar performance on CVJ outcome (e.g., jump height) and strategy metrics (e.g., countermovement depth). Overall, these findings suggest that at the professional level of play, the ability to secure a spot in the starting lineup is not primarily determined by the players' CVJ performance characteristics.

Quality of lean body mass and jump capacity in high performance young basketball players lean body mass and jump capacity

The lean body mass (LBM) components have been suggested as important predictors of anaerobic performance, which is highly involved in basketball. We explored with descriptive cross-sectional design the relationship between anaerobic performance and full molecular and cellular body composition profile in young male basketball players. Twenty-one players (age = 16.8 ± 1.6 years; body mass = 76.3 ± 15.7 kg, height = 189.3 ± 12.6 cm) were recruited, 11 elite and 10 local level. Participants were evaluated on multicomponent body composition [LBM, appendicular lean soft tissue (ALST), bone mineral content (BMC), total body water (TBW), intracellular water (ICW) and extracellular water (ECW)] and field-based anaerobic performance (vertical jump, linear sprint, and handgrip strength). The stepwise regression analyses adjusted for confounders showed significant relationships of whole-body and regional body composition components with handgrip and jump performance (P ≤ 0.03). Prediction models combining body composition variables assessed by bioimpedance analysis (BIA) and double-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) revealed that lean mass and hydration ratios (ICW/ECW and ECW/TBW) were strongly associated with jump performance (CMJ and CMJ25kg), independently of the competition level (P < 0.01). The novel finding in this study was that water quality (ICW/ECW) and water distribution (ECW/TBW, ICW) of total and regional LBM were the main predictors of vertical jump capacity in young basketball players.

An improved CLVA method for evaluating the endurance quality level of young male basketball players with 2-tuple linguistic neutrosophic information

For a long time, the level of endurance quality of our male basketball athletes is not high, and there is a gap with the strongest countries in Europe and America. The former head coach of Chinese men’s basketball team diagnosed the biggest problem of Chinese men’s basketball team and Chinese youth men’s basketball team is the poor quality of endurance. It is especially important to strengthen the endurance training of our basketball players and improve their endurance level. However, from the current situation, the teams in the training due to the lack of standards for endurance quality training has led to a great blindness in endurance quality training. The endurance quality level evaluation of young male basketball players is a classic multiple attribute group decision making (MAGDM) issue with vague, inconsistent, and indeterminate information. The 2-tuple linguistic neutrosophic sets (2TLNSs) is an appropriate form to express the indeterminate decision-making information in the endurance quality level evaluation of young male basketball players. Therefore, in this paper, the 2-tuple linguistic neutrosophic numbers CLVA (2TLNN-CLVA) is built based on traditional close value (CLVA) method and applies it to evaluate the endurance quality level of young male basketball players. Finally, a numerical example for evaluating the endurance quality level of young male basketball players has been given and some decision comparisons are also conducted to further illustrate the advantages of the 2TLNN-CLVA method.