The Relationship Between Physical Fitness Qualities and Sport-Specific Technical Skills in Female, Team-Based Ball Players: A Systematic Review

Sports Medicine - Open

Table 7 Relationships between physical fitness components and defensive sport-specific technical skills from studies with fair or good methodological quality with low ROB

Physical fitness measures	Associated with technical skill		Not associated with technical skill	Summary conclusion
	# relationships assessed from each study	Statistical association	# relationships assessed from each study	n/N outcome (%)	Practical interpretation
Agility measures	1 [79], 1 [88]	−	1 [79], 1 [90], 2 [88], 2 [89]	2/8 (25%)	No association
Body composition measures	5 [90], 14 [89]	+	2 [89], 2 [90], 6 [87]	19/29 (66%)	Clear association (taller, heavier ball players with larger body composition measurements = better defensive skill performance)
Cardiorespiratory fitness measures	1 [79], 1 [88]	+/−	1 [79], 2 [88]	2/5 (40%)	Uncertain association
Flexibility measures	1 [79]	+	1 [79], 1 [90]	1/3 (33%)	Unknown
Muscular endurance measures	0	N/A	1 [90], 2 [79]	0/3 (0%)	Unknown
Muscular strength measures	1 [90]	+	4 [75], 6 [88]	1/11 (9%)	No association
Power measures	3 [90]	+	2 [89], 2 [90], 6 [79], 12 [88]	3/25 (12%)	No association
Reaction time measures	3 [77, 79]	+/−	21 [77, 79]	3/24 (13%)	No association
Speed measures	3 [88]	−	1 [68], 1 [90], 2 [89], 9 [88]	3/16 (19%)	No association

Coding: n/N number of significantly associated relationships divided by total number of relationships. # number of relationships reported with study reference number in brackets. Statistical association: + positive statistical correlations, − negative statistical correlations, +/− includes both positive and negative statistical correlations. Practical interpretation: clear association (≥ 60% of total relationships are significantly associated), uncertain association (34–59% of total relationships are significantly associated), no association (≤ 33% of total relationships are significantly associated), unknown conclusion (< 5 total relationships reported)