Estimated lower limb mechanical muscular power during vertical jumps by contact mat and bosco’s equation: a correlation and agreement cross-sectional study

The mechanical muscular power (MMP) can be estimated by different methods and because that, it could lead to misinterpretation.This study investigated the correlation and agreement between lower limb MMP in a vertical jumping estimated by two on-field evaluation tools to sports performance, being a contact mat (MMPcontact_mat) and estimated by the Bosco’s equation (MMPBosco’s_equation).Fifty-two athletes participated in the study. The maximum continuous vertical jumps test was used for 60s on a contact mat to determine the MMP. The test was applied just once. The MMPcontact_mat was provided by the software Multisprintfull® and the MMPBosco’s_equation was calculated by the Bosco’s equation. The correlation was determined by the Pearson test and the agreement by the Bland Altman test. The mean values of MMPcontact_mat and MMPBosco’s_equation, both in W∙kg-1, were respectively 4.5±0.5 and 15.4±3.7. Measures were correlated, r =0.72; p <0.001, but not concordant. A bias of 10.82 was found with T (51) =23.23; p <0.001, this bias being correlated with the means of the measurements. We concluded that although MMP measures were correlated, they did not agree with each other. The MMPcontact_mat was also underestimated about MMPBosco’s_equation and the bias increased in proportion to the increase in MMP production.