Reliability And Validity Of Using The Landmine Punch Throw To Assess The Specific Power Of MMA Athletes

Background:Mixed martial arts athletes must deliver a greater number of damaging strikes than they receive in order to win.Producing knockdowns,rendering unconsciousness,and scoring points can be accomplished through the application of high magnitudes of striking forces.There is no universally accepted test method around the world about how to accurately and reliably track and evaluate the striking force as the specific power.This research will talk about reliability and validity of using the Landmine Punch Throw to assess the specific power of MMA athletes,as well as reliability and validity of a linear positional transducer Gym Aware and an accelerometer Shimmer during monitoring the Landmine Punch Throw.To provide a reference for coaches,athletes and researchers.Methods:In this study,18 subjects were recruited for the Landmine Punch Throw and AQUA Training Bag test,using the three-dimensional motion capture system Qualisys,a linear positional transducer Gym Aware and an accelerometer Shimmer to record the peak velocity,peak power and momentum at the end of the barbell during the Landmine Punch Throw Test,as well as the AQUA Training Bag for the peak force of punching.Use the intraclass correlation coefficient(ICC)and the coefficient of variation(CV)for the reliability analysis.And use the Pearson correlation coefficient r,the paired samples t-test,the scatter diagram & regression line,and the Bland-Altman plot for the validity analysis.Using Excel and Medcalc for the statistical analysis.Result:Reliability and Validity of monitoring the Landmine Punch Throw:(1)Test-retest reliability of linear positional transducer Gym Aware: for the peak velocity,Intraclass Correlation Coefficient ICC=0.96,95%CI=0.94-0.97;Coefficient of Variation CV=5.31%,95%CI=4.35-6.12;for the peak power,Intraclass Correlation Coefficient ICC=0.90,95%=0.84-0.93;Coefficient of Variation CV=10.79%,95%CI=8.95-12.36.(2)The validity of the peak velocity of the linear positional transducer Gym Aware: Pearson correlation coefficient r=0.98,p<0.001;Paired samples t-test,mean difference MD=-0.91m/s,95%CI=(-0.94,-0.88),p<0.001.(3)Test-retest reliability of accelerometer Shimmer: for the peak velocity,Intraclass Correlation Coefficient ICC=0.89,95%CI=0.83-0.92;Coefficient of Variation CV=7.88%,95%CI=6.86-8.79.(4)Accelerometer Shimmer validity: Pearson correlation coefficient r=0.93,p<0.001;Paired samples t-tests,mean difference MD=-0.06m/s,95%CI=(-0.13,0.02),p= 0.13.Reliability and validity of using the landmine punch throw to assess MMA athletes specific power:(1)Reliability of using the landmine punch throw to assess MMA athletes specific power: Gym Aware and Shimmer have almost perfect retest reliability during monitoring the landmine punch throw test,so it can be considered that the landmine punch throw test also has almost perfect retest reliability.(2)Validity of using the landmine punch throw to assess MMA athletes specific power: for Gym Aware’s momentum,the correlation coefficients r with ATB cross punch at low,medium and high loads were 0.74,0.75 and 0.71,respectively,and for Shimmer’s momentum,the correlation coefficients r with ATB cross punch at low,medium and high loads were 0.73,0.73 and 0.64,respectively.Conclusion and practical advice:(1)The linear positinal transducer Gym Aware has high test-retest reliability but not good validity in monitoring the peak velocity and peak power of the landmine punch throw.(2)The 3-axis accelerometer Shimmer has excellent test-retest reliability and validity in monitoring the peak velocity of the landmine punch throw.(3)The landmine punch throw test(Momentum)assesses MMA athletes specific power with very high validity.When arranging athletes for landmine punch thorw training and testing in practical applications:(1)The strength and conditioning coaches should pay more attention to the record of peak power rather than peak velocity.(2)The coach can establish a specific explosive load-speed curve for the athlete according to landmine punch throw test under different loads,so that the athlete’s training should pay more attention to focus on maximal strength training or maximal speed training.(3)When monitoring barbell training in circular motion mode,it is a better choice to choose an accelerometer as a monitoring device.