Validity and reliability of a new portable and cost-effective photoelectric cells device for measuring vertical jump performance: “The ADR Jumping”

The vertical jump is one of the most used testing movements to assess athlete’s physical performance and fatigue status in several sports. However, low-cost, portable, field-based, and reliable methods are needed to measure jumping performance. The aim of the current investigation was to assess the validity and reliability of a new photoelectric cells device (ADR) for measuring the vertical jump height. Twenty-three trained male participants (age: 24.8 ± 5.2 years, body mass: 74.2 ± 7.3 kg; height: 1.76 ± 0.04 m) performed four maximal countermovement jumps (CMJ). Flight time-derived jump height was extracted simultaneously from three devices including a force plate (FP) (Kistler Quattro-Jump, criterion measurement) and two photoelectric cells (PC) devices (ADR and Optojump). The ADR mean CMJ height measurements demonstrated substantial validity compared to both FP and Optojump ( r = 0.98 p < 0.01). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for reliability were classified as good to excellent for the three devices (0.986–0.994). All devices showed similar coefficients of variation (CV%), classified as very good (3.21–3.85), whereas observed standardized typical error values (STE) were small (1.29–1.39). The ADR Jumping device can be considered an affordable, reliable, and valid method to measure vertical jump height thereby making it a practical resource for coaches when monitoring the training process.