I was just wondering if anyone here had an opinion about SPARQ testing which Nike has come out with. I participated in the testing while at Penn Relays.
It consists of vertical jump, broad jump, 30 meter sprint, and over the back medicine ball throw. Sparq training is suppose to measure overall athletism in your sport. However I find that it would be a hard task to accomplish in track.
I finished in the top 5 at Penn with measures of 36" in the vertical, 10’3 in the broad, 57’ in the 3kg ball throw, and 3.85 in the 30m.
However, besides measuring good starting speed/explosion out of the blocks I doubt the effectiveness of this testing as I only run 11.3 in the 100.
Improvement in the specific technique of these tests makes you wonder if you’re a good tester or a good athlete. These are good monitoring tools for training response, but don’t confuse the results with real performance in your sport.
SPARQ has now unfortunately come to the game of cricket in India and I watched a bunch of young cricket players go through the drills with trainer Todd Norman from the USA. Todd is an impressive ‘looking’ trainer and many kids may want to look like him and will think that SPARQ made Todd look the way he does. Just another way to sell more Nike products…:rolleyes:
The SPARQ testing is nothing more than a combine of sorts that paints a picture of power capability.
I question the use of only a 3kg ball for any athlete beyond the youth stage.
The tests are fine, I used a test battery very similar, yet more extensive, when I taught PE at the high school level.
The testing is a fine predictor of someone’s “potential” for success in speed strength disciplines although, as we know, much more specific testing must be conducted in order to identify potential in individual disciplines as the technique and special work capacity associated with the sport form of individual disciplines is not measured via the SPARQ battery…
I was mostly kidding, pope. Dan says the best indicator in HIS program is OHB w/ a shotput (besides actual sprints obviously). He does a variety of tests, which they do at LSU in a pentathlon form. 30m from 3pt, OHB shot throw, BLF shot throw, standing long jump, standing triple jump are the five tests I believe. I’m sure they have some other stuff in there as well.
Well it has been three years now as you can see from the time of my first post, I can tell you roughly what they were but thats about all.
His broad jump was either 10’1 or 10’2
His 30 was with .05 of mine but I cant tell you exactly or if it was slightly higher or lower it was handtimed as well so it really isnt accurate.
His vertical was 35.
His medicine ball through was was less than mine by a lot, I forget how much maybe 4 feet or more. Tho our benches were 310 for me and 300 for him.
He ended up running high 6.3 in the 55 and 10.7x in the 100.
To a limited extent I can sort of understand the use of non-specific physical tests for sports that do not comprise measuring a singular, linear performance parameter (i.e. time, distance, weight) but instead involve playing a game against an opponent (e.g., football, soccer, etc.). But even then, you’re attempting to quantify athletic ability that is really more qualitative in nature (i.e. the ability to play the game as opposed to simply move the fastest, throw or jump the longest, or lift the most).
For linear performance sports such as track, the only quantitative measure that counts in predicting performance is the specific sporting activity itself. Charlie has mentioned several times that his world class sprinters consistently performed in the middle of the bell curve on non-specific performance tests like jumping.
