Evaluation of agility and reaction times in children participating in the multisport project: differences between boys and girls

Purpose: A 72-dimensional meta-analysis of the effect of 21 studies (n = 15, 003) over a period of 73 years reports that the male advantage in reaction times to visual stimuli is decreasing. Physical activity and sports may be correlated with improvements in motor reaction times and agility. However, reaction time is the crucial initial step in performing agility tasks efficiently. Children engaged in multisport activities exhibit higher levels of motor coordination compared to children involved in single-sport activities. This study aims to examine whether multisport activity performed for several years has created significant differences in agility and reaction times to visual stimuli between 11–12-year-old males and females. Methods: The sample consists of 96 children, 49 girls (age: 11.52 ± 0.51 years) and 47 boys (age: 11.48 ± 0.51 years), who have been participating in the multisport program Centri CONI Puglia (Italy) for 3 years. Agility was assessed through the Agility T-test. Measurement of reaction times to visual stimuli for the upper and lower limbs was performed using the Choice reaction Upper Limb and Choice reaction Lower Limb tests utilizing a mobile equipment with LED light disks wireless. The independent samples t-test was used to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between the means of the two independent groups in each administered test. Results: In the analyzed sample, the independent samples t-test demonstrates that based on the obtained data, there are no significant gender differences in reaction and agility tests. However, girls had slightly lower reaction times for the lower limbs. Conclusions: Within its limitations, this study seems to support the hypothesis from the literature that girls are gradually closing the gap in reaction times to visual stimuli compared to males. It can be hypothesized that long-term adherence to multisport programs may have contributed to achieving this performance milestone. This result may have also influenced the gender balance in agility performance since it is demonstrated that reaction and decision-making times account for 3.6% of the total time in an agility task, and both are correlated. Long-term multisport training programs should be considered and encouraged among youth training professionals.