ALPHA children

ALPHA children and adolescents: Assessment of physical fitness in children and adolescents

imageBased on the currently available evidence, physical fitness assessment has become of interest not only from a sport performance point of view, but also and mainly from a clinical and public health point of view. In order to have a fitness-test battery to assessing fitness in a harmonized way across Europe and internationally, the European Commission funded the ALPHA project. Several working groups were established and the assessment of fitness in children and adolescents was the main responsibility of our research group representing the University of Granada, Spain and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

After systematically reviewing the literature and conducting more than 20 methodological studies, the ALPHA group proposed the ALPHA fitness-test battery to be used in children and adolescents. This battery included a number of field-based fitness tests that showed the highest reliability, validity and relation with future health.

Visit the website of the ALPHA project where you will find the manual of operations and protocols to perform correctly the fitness tests proposed, as well as reference values for the interpretation of the assessment and videos showing how to perform and score the fitness tests correctly.

  • ALPHA - fitness summary paper for children and adolescents: Download PDF.
  • Ver artículo resumen de la creación de la Batería ALPHA para niños y adolescentes:

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union, in the framework of the Public Health Programme (ALPHA project, Ref: 2006120), the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS), the Spanish Ministry of Education (EX-2007-1124; AP-2004-2745; and AP2005-4358), and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science-FEDER funds (Acciones Complementarias DEP2007-29933-E).