Reliability Assessment of Functional Balance Tests in Semi-Professional Adolescent and Young Girls of Several Selected Sport Fields

Balance is one of the fitness factors that plays an important role in sports skills performance and helps the athletes to keep fit and achieve their goals. Different sports need different amount of balance according to their characteristics and requirements and different athletes have different abilities to maintain balance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess reliability of functional balance tests in semi-professional adolescent and young girls of several selected sports. 66 semi-professional athletes of badminton, basketball and taekwondo from two groups of adolescents (10-15 years old) and young subjects (20-30 years old) who had a general health participated in this study. Static balance tests (Stork, Romberg, Sharpened Romberg, BESS and Angel), semi-dynamic (Y), and dynamic (Time to Get Up and Go and Tandem Walking) in 3 scoring stages were conducted by the examiner. To reduce learning effect, each scoring stage was performed with a 72-hour interval. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate data mean and standard deviation; inferential statistics with ICC test were used to determine the reliability of tests at a significance level of P≤0.05. Results showed that the Stork, Angel and Y tests in all three sport fields in adolescent and young groups and T.G.U.G in badminton and taekwondo in young group were reliable. According to these results, reliable tests can be recommended to evaluate athletes’ balance for a better performance and a prevention of injury during exercise activities.