LUMBAR SPINE DYNAMIC STABILITY EVALUATION - A NEW FIELD TEST

The aim of this study was to design a new field test that measures dynamic stability of lumbar spine joints (controlled range of motion). It was also a goal to determine the metric characteristics of the newly designed test on two groups of subjects differing on their physical preparedness. The samp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hrvatski športskomedicinski vjesnik 2010-12, Vol.25 (2), p.75-80
Main Authors: Bobic, T T, Radas, J
Format: Article
Language:hrv ; eng
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Summary:The aim of this study was to design a new field test that measures dynamic stability of lumbar spine joints (controlled range of motion). It was also a goal to determine the metric characteristics of the newly designed test on two groups of subjects differing on their physical preparedness. The sample was composed of 35 girls aged 9-20 years from Zagreb, Croatia. Fifteen of them were rhythmic gymnasts who at average trained 8.93 hours per week, for at least 5 years. The other group consisted of 20 female pupils of the secondary school "Borovje" who were not engaged in any regular sport activity beside physical education classes. The subjects performed 2 tests for the evaluation of lumbar spine dynamic stability. One well known and with estabilished metric characteristics (F-1), and the other one, newely constructed (F-2). The normality of the distributions was examined using the Kolmogorov--Smimov test (KS). Validity and reliability were estimated with the Factor analysis. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used for homogeneity evaluation, for independent samples was used to establish the capacity of the new test to discriminate the lumbar spine dynamic stability of trainees and nontrainees. The obtained results showed that the new test has high sensitivity, validity, reliability and homogeneity, tested on two groups of same age but different level of physical preparedness. Such results stress the wide applicability of the newly constructed test regardless on the level of physical preparedness or the work conditions. It is thus usable in sports as well as in physical therapy practice.
ISSN:0354-0766