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Why should you do fitness testing? There are surprisingly high number of good reasons to fitness test your athletes. In addition to my top-10 reasons to test, here is a comprehensive list of reasons to fitness test your sporting team, adapted from a list for soccer players published by Jemni et al. 2018.

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Why Test?

1. To establish a baseline profile for each player and the squad as a whole.
   
2. To identify individual strengths and weaknesses.
   
3. To provide feedback to players on their own capacities and to motivate them to improve.
   
4. To evaluate the effectiveness of a specific training intervention
   
5. To evaluate the effectiveness of other interventions such as a nutritional or psychological program.
   
6. To monitor progress during rehabilitation or determine whether an athlete is ready to complete.
   
7. To identify a relationship between individual performance capacities and the actual demands of competition.
   
8. To monitor the health status of a player.
   
9. To assist in identifying talented players.
   
10. To attempt to create performance norms according to age category, stage of development, special populations, playing position and sport.
    
11. To monitor and evaluate the progression of youth players.
    
12. To place players in an appropriate training group.
    
13. To examine the development of performance from year to year.
    
14. To enable future performance to be predicted.
    
15. To provide data for scientific research on aspects of performance.

Reference

• Jemni, M., Prince, M.S. & Baker, J.S. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Assessing Cardiorespiratory Fitness of Soccer Players: Is Test Specificity the Issue?–A Review. Sports Med - Open 4, 28 (2018). 

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Related Pages

• My Top-10 Reasons to Fitness Test
• The Fitness Testing Guide — free eBook
• Complete List of Fitness Tests