A single-leg lateral jump isolates what the vertical jump cannot measure — and predicts shuffling performance in elite basketball players.
Force is plane-specific. An athlete who produces elite force vertically does not necessarily produce elite force laterally. These are distinct physical qualities, governed by different mechanical demands, and they need to be measured independently.
Nearly every assessment in elite basketball — the vertical jump, the sprint test, the lane agility drill — is built around vertical or linear performance. Yet basketball players spend up to a third of their live game actions moving laterally. Defensive slides, closeouts, help rotations, post switches — lateral movement is the mechanical foundation of half-court defense. The testing battery has not caught up to that reality.
The lateral countermovement jump (LCMJ) is designed to address that gap.
The finding
The metric
that mattered
In 2022, P3 researchers published a peer-reviewed study in Sports examining whether kinetic data from a single-leg lateral countermovement jump could stratify shuffling performance across 140 elite basketball players — 107 professional (NBA, G-League, EuroLeague) and 33 NCAA Division I collegiate players.
One variable differentiated fast shufflers from slow ones across the entire sample: relative lateral force — the amount of lateral push an athlete generates per kilogram of body weight during the LCMJ.
Athletes in the fast group produced 6.3% more relative lateral force than their slower counterparts. Effect size was large (ES = 0.70). Statistical confidence was high (p < 0.001).
Not peak vertical force. Not lateral impulse. Not rate of force development. Relative lateral force was the signal.
The mechanism
Relative lateral force,
not vertical
This is mechanically straightforward. A lateral shuffle is not a vertical task. The athlete is accelerating and decelerating body mass in the horizontal plane. Relative lateral force — how much lateral push an athlete generates per unit of body weight — maps directly to that demand.
Two players with identical vertical jump numbers, identical body mass, even identical peak lateral force in absolute terms — but different relative lateral force outputs — will move laterally at different speeds. The one producing more force per kilogram shuffles faster.
This is why vertical testing alone produces an incomplete picture. A prospect can post elite numbers on every vertical and linear metric and still lack the lateral force production capacity to stay with quick ball-handlers. The vertical jump does not measure that. The LCMJ does.
WHAT DID NOT DIFFERENTIATE THE GROUPS
The study examined seven kinetic and anthropometric variables between fast and slow groups. Body mass, height, peak vertical force, peak lateral force, and lateral impulse showed no significant differences after statistical correction.
The difference between fast and slow shufflers was not about size or raw power output. It was about lateral force production efficiency — force generated per unit of body mass in the lateral plane. A smaller player who produces high relative lateral force shuffled faster than a larger, more powerful player who did not.
RELIABILITY
A test is only useful if it produces consistent results. Within-session, nine of ten kinetic metrics met reliability thresholds (CV <10%, ICC >0.7). Between-session, four metrics passed: peak vertical force, peak lateral force, relative lateral force, and lateral impulse. Temporal variables — including rate of lateral force development — fell short of reliability thresholds and should be interpreted with caution.
The metrics that matter for practitioner decisions clear the reliability bar.
BENCHMARK DATA
For practitioners looking to contextualize LCMJ results against the study population:
- Fast group: 9.51 ± 0.80 N/kg relative lateral force — 5-5 shuffle time 2.67 ± 0.07s
- Slow group: 8.93 ± 0.87 N/kg relative lateral force — 5-5 shuffle time 2.87 ± 0.08s
Values above 9.51 N/kg indicate strong lateral force production capacity relative to this population. Values above 10.0 N/kg are exceptional. Values below 8.93 N/kg suggest a lateral force production deficit worth addressing in program design.
WHERE THE LCMJ FITS
The LCMJ does not replace composite change-of-direction tests. It sits upstream of them. Where a T-test or lane agility drill captures a composite movement outcome, the LCMJ isolates one of the physical inputs that contributes to that outcome.
The practical value: when a player posts a slow 5-5 shuffle time alongside low relative lateral force, the limiter is likely physical — lateral force production capacity. When a player posts a slow shuffle time despite adequate relative lateral force, the limiter is more likely technical — trunk positioning, angle of force application, or eccentric strength. Those are different problems with different training solutions and different developmental timelines.
The LCMJ is a single movement, performed on a triaxial force plate, that takes seconds to administer, requires minimal familiarization, and produces objective kinetic data that can be tracked longitudinally. For basketball practitioners with force plate access, the case is straightforward: relative lateral force from the LCMJ adds a layer of mechanical specificity that no composite test provides on its own.
The lateral game matters. Now there is a way to measure one of the physical capacities that drives it.
METHODOLOGY NOTE
140 elite basketball players (107 professional — NBA, G-League, EuroLeague; 33 NCAA Division I). Nine-camera motion capture at 120 fps synchronized with triaxial force plate data sampled at 1000 Hz. Maximal single-leg lateral countermovement jumps and timed 5-5 lateral shuffles under standardized conditions. Shuffling performance groups determined by median split. Reliability assessed via Bland-Altman plots, coefficients of variation, typical errors, and intraclass correlation coefficients.
Citation: Leidersdorf E, Rauch J, Reeves T, Borkan L, Francis J, Storey L, Souza EOD, Elliott M, Ugrinowitsch C. Reliability and Effectiveness of a Lateral Countermovement Jump for Stratifying Shuffling Performance Amongst Elite Basketball Players. Sports. 2022;10(11):186. doi:10.3390/sports10110186
More from P3: all P3 research. For teams and organizations: talk to P3. For high school athletes: the P3 College Prep Program.