Relationship Between General and Specific Coordination in 8- to 17-Year-Old Male Basketball Players.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships
between general coordination, sport-specifi c coordination, and sport-specifi c
fi tness of 8- to 17-year-old male basketball players. 312 males with training experience
ranging from one year in the 8-year-old cohort up to 10 years for the 17-yearolds
performed basketball-specifi c fi tness (20 m sprint, Illinois, countermovement
jump), general coordination (20 m run with three obstacles), semi-basketball-specifi
c coordination (20 m sprint dribbling two balls, countermovement jump with
arm swing) and basketball-specifi c coordination (Illinois ball dribbling) tests. There
were moderate to large correlations between the results of both general and basketball-
specifi c coordination with the results of most basketball-specifi c coordination
tests in all age groups. Correlations between general and basketball-specifi c coordination
were large in four age groups (11–14 yr., r = .52 to r = .76), moderate in fi ve
groups (8–10, 15 & 16 yr., r = .37 to r = .46), while not signifi cant in the 17-year-olds.
These results suggest that the importance of general coordination for sport-specifi c
skills improvements during a sports-specifi c skill acquisition phase, remains high
at the skill refi nement phase, and decreases when sport-specifi c skills have been
mastered to near-perfection.