Lower-Quarter Y-Balance Test Differs by Age: Younger Athletes May Not Be Generalized to High School-Aged Counterparts.
James J McGinley, Ben Randoing, Laura Saleem and 4 others
PMID 39268227WHAT IT FOUND
Younger athletes aged 8 to 10 showed greater anterior reach than older teens on the Y-Balance Test.
This contradicts the assumption that performance improves with age. Do not apply standard high school normative values to pre-adolescent patients during return-to-play screening.
Key findings
01Athletes aged 8 to 10 years demonstrated significantly greater anterior reach distances than those aged 13 to 17 years.
02Anterior reach scores peaked in the 11 to 12-year-old group before declining in older age groups.
03The Y-Balance Test has not yet been validated for the 8 to 10-year-old population.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study was conducted at a single pediatric sports medicine practice, which may limit the generalizability of the results to other regions or patient populations. The sample size for the youngest age group (8 to 10 years) was small (52 patients) compared to the older groups, which affects the stability of the findings for that cohort. The Y-Balance Test is not yet validated for the 8 to 10-year-old population, so the clinical meaning of these scores is uncertain. Patients included were those cleared for return-to-play, meaning they likely had better function than the general injured population, which may skew normative values.
Declared interests
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the greater anterior reach in 8 to 10-year-olds as evidence that they are more stable or less injured than teenagers. These scores reflect a lack of validation for this age group and potential differences in body proportions or test familiarity, not necessarily superior functional capacity.