Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to define and check the flexibility field while using different measurement procedures for the same areas of a male body. The data were athered on a sample of 236 male students of the University of Ljubljana, who were all between 21 and 22 years of age. Flexibility was measured through fifteens tasks, all requiring wide amplitudes of movement in the area of the shoulder, trunk and hip joint. The amplitudes were measured using three different procedures: linear and angular measures with usding a gravity goniometer and a classical two-prong goniometer. In this case we used 45 measures for measuring flexibility. Most of the used measures of flexibility proved to be quite reliable (classical and contemporary coefficients of reliability). All factor structures (direct oblimin and the GK criterion for factor extraction) obtained through different measurement procedures were defined by latent dimensions, which are topologically oriented towards joints and wider surrounding areas, and precisely defined by the action and space characteristics of the movements. The different measurement procedures used for the same movement tasks give nearly the same forms of flexibility and all measures combined, processed in the second-stage factor analysis, resulted in practically the same form of flexibility field as well. On the basis of the gathered information it can be said that the flexibility field is nearly the same, irrespective of the measurement procedure, but the original results of different measurement procedures gave various information about the flexibility in the same areas of a human body. Verf.-Referat