Can Lateral Cyclic Reactive Jump Ability Be Reliably Measured Using an Inertial Measurement Unit?
6 affiliations
- 1Sports Research Institute New Zealand, Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland 0632, New Zealand.
- 2Athlete Training and Health, Cypress, TX 77429, USA.
- 3Department of Sport and Health, Faculty of Health, Education and Environment, Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology, Tauranga 3112, New Zealand.
- 4Potential Performance, Tauranga 3112, New Zealand.
- 5Independent Researcher, Durham, NC 27701, USA.
- 6Department of Sports Medicine, University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX 77006, USA.
Abstract
Jump testing is widely used to assess lower-limb power, force absorption, and stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) function; however, lateral cyclic tests remain underexplored despite their relevance to change-of-direction performance. This study determined the intra- and inter-session reliability of a novel cyclic lateral leg power test using an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Seventeen female athletes completed three identical testing sessions separated by seven days. Participants performed 10 consecutive lateral bounds at distances of 1.0×, 1.25×, and 1.5× leg length on each limb. A foot-mounted inertial measurement unit (IMU) (Output Sports Ltd., Dublin, Ireland) quantified contact time (CT) and air time (AT), with the five shortest values for each variable analyzed. Reliability was assessed using percent change in the mean, coefficients of variation (CV), and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Between-session changes were small (-7.9% to 6.6%), with no significant session effects for CT or AT. CVs ranged from 9.2% to 21.8%, with only CT at 1.0× leg length between Sessions 1 and 2 below 10%. ICCs ranged from 0.12 to 0.76, indicating poor-to-good relative reliability. Overall, the IMU-instrumented lateral cyclic test demonstrated largely unacceptable reliability, particularly at greater jump distances, indicating that further protocol refinement is required before implementation in clinical or performance settings.
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BibTeX
@article{michalak2026lateral,
title = {{Can Lateral Cyclic Reactive Jump Ability Be Reliably Measured Using an Inertial Measurement Unit?}},
author = {Margaret M Michalak and Chloe M Ryan and Alex Ehlert and Yuxiao Lian and Christopher Slocum and Leslie Bennett and Hailey Villarreal and John Cronin},
journal = {Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3390/s26206532},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42944395},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Can Lateral Cyclic Reactive Jump Ability Be Reliably Measured Using an Inertial Measurement Unit?
AU - Margaret M Michalak
AU - Chloe M Ryan
AU - Alex Ehlert
AU - Yuxiao Lian
AU - Christopher Slocum
AU - Leslie Bennett
AU - Hailey Villarreal
AU - John Cronin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/15
JO - Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
DO - 10.3390/s26206532
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42944395
AB - Jump testing is widely used to assess lower-limb power, force absorption, and stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) function; however, lateral cyclic tests remain underexplored despite their relevance to change-of-direction performance. This study determined the intra- and inter-session reliability of a novel cyclic lateral leg power test using an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Seventeen female athletes completed three identical testing sessions separated by seven days. Participants performed 10 consecutive lateral bounds at distances of 1.0×, 1.25×, and 1.5× leg length on each limb. A foot-mounted inertial measurement unit (IMU) (Output Sports Ltd., Dublin, Ireland) quantified contact time (CT) and air time (AT), with the five shortest values for each variable analyzed. Reliability was assessed using percent change in the mean, coefficients of variation (CV), and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Between-session changes were small (-7.9% to 6.6%), with no significant session effects for CT or AT. CVs ranged from 9.2% to 21.8%, with only CT at 1.0× leg length between Sessions 1 and 2 below 10%. ICCs ranged from 0.12 to 0.76, indicating poor-to-good relative reliability. Overall, the IMU-instrumented lateral cyclic test demonstrated largely unacceptable reliability, particularly at greater jump distances, indicating that further protocol refinement is required before implementation in clinical or performance settings.
SN - 1424-8220
ER -