Development of an eight-shaped field test for aerobic capacity assessment in wheelchair basketball: a pilot study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55040/2wfbf492Keywords:
wheelchair basketball, exercise test, oxygen consumption, cardiorespiratory fitness, sports for people with disabilities, team sportAbstract
Wheelchair basketball (WB) requires sport-specific assessment procedures that reflect the propulsion and turning demands of on-court performance. Traditional shuttle-based field tests may not fully reproduce the movement patterns of WB, particularly regarding bidirectional turns and continuous wheelchair propulsion. This pilot study aimed to develop and describe a novel eight-shaped field-test protocol designed to better reflect WB-specific propulsion and turning demands, and to explore its feasibility and preliminary cardiorespiratory responses compared with a laboratory treadmill protocol. Two male WB athletes with different functional classifications (1.0 and 3.0) completed a maximal incremental treadmill protocol and the proposed on-court test, both performed with Oxycon Jaeger® metabolic gas analysers. VO2max values reached during the field test were lower than those recorded in the laboratory for both participants (38.6 vs. 44.42 mL/kg/min for class 3.0; 32.35 vs. 38.33 mL/kg/min for class 1.0). Despite these differences, absolute VO2max values ranged from 2.11 to 2.49 L/min across both testing conditions, while ventilation responses followed the same overall pattern, with higher values generally observed in the laboratory. The proposed test is presented here as a novel protocol for future validation; it may provide a promising on-court alternative to VO2max measurement by offering greater ecological specificity than traditional shuttle run tests. Its structure allows bidirectional turns and smoother propulsion, which could help mitigate mechanical asymmetries inherent to conventional protocols. Given these preliminary results, broader validation is needed to confirm reproducibility and to establish reference percentiles across functional classes, age, and gender.
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