MECHA A NG ERINATHLETES D.T.KIRKENDALL, PhDandG.M.STREET, MS* Section ofSports Medicine, TheCleveland Clinic Foundation

TheWingate cycle ergometer testisawidely usedtestofsustained muscular power. A limitation ofthetest isthelack of development andretrieval ofstored elastic energy duetoalack ofaneccentric phase. Tomeasure mechanical poweroutput oftheentire stretch-shorteni ng cycle, thetest ofBoscoetal(1983) wasadministered to119maleathletes in7different activities during their pre-participation evaluations. Thesports tesedwereindoor soccer, American football andballet (professionals), outdoor soccer, basketball andwretling (collegiate) andamateur bobsled. Results showedtheoverall average poweroutput tobe20.37 W.kg-1 forthe60sreciprocal jumping test. BaUet dancers generated significantly less mechanical powerthanindoor soccer, basketball andbobsled athletes, while wrestesgenerated significantly less power thanindoor soccer andbasketball athletes (all p< 0.05). Noother between-sport differences wereseen.Asubset ofindoor soccer players (n- 10)wereretested after 4monthsoftraining. Powerimproved from20.8 to24.3 W.kg-1 (p< 0.05). While between sport differences werelimited, training differences inonesubset ofathletes werereadily identified.