Familiarization effects of an elliptical all-out test and the Wingate test based on mechanical power indices

The wingate all-out test (wat) is commonly used to estimate anaerobic capabilities of athletes by using an upper or lower body cycle ergometer,however,a new test modality called elliptical all-out test (eat) which measures activated wholebody locomotor tasks has recently been proposed. the purpose of this study was to evaluate the familiarization effects of a 30-s eat versus wat. twenty male trained athletes performed prefamiliarization (trial-i),post-familiarization (trial-ii) and retest of trial-ii (trial-iii) sessions on both cycle ergometer and elliptical trainer. peak power (pp),average power (ap),power drop (pd) and fatigue index ratio (fi%) were analyzed using student's t-test for paired samples and correlated by intra-class correlation coefficients (icc). moreover,an error detection procedure was administered using data attained from illogical interrelations among 5-s segments of 30-s tests. the main results showed that there were significant familiarization effects in all mechanical power outputs obtained from trial-i and trial-ii in both eat (icc = 0.49-0.55) and wat (icc = 0.50-0.57) performances (p ≤ 0.01). significant segmental disorders were detected in power production during trial-i of eat,however,none existed in any of test trails in the wat (p ≤ 0.001). after familiarization sessions,reliability coefficients between trial-ii and trial-iii showed moderate to strong-level agreements for both eat (icc = 0.74-0.91) and the wat (icc=0.76-0.93). our results suggested that prior to the performance tests,combination of a well designed familiarization session with one full all-out test administration is necessary to estimate the least moderately reliable and accurate test indices for both wat and eat. © journal of sports science and medicine.