The purpose of the present study was to construct an appropriate flexibility test battery for competitive swimmers.
Twelve flexibility tests which have been validated to measure the flexibility of various parts of body were adminstrated to 153 skilled college swimmers.
For the purpose mentioned above, factor analytic procedures were applied to the correlation matrix consisted of 12 flexibility measures and 5 variables derived from some of these 12 measures.
As a result, the six factors were extracted and interpreted as follows : I) trunk rotation flexibility, II) trunk lateral flexibility, III) shoulder flexibility, IV) ankle extension and mobility flexibility, V) trunk flexion and extension flexibility, and VI) ankle flexion flexibility.
Taking the factorial validity, reliability, and practicability of tests into consideration, the following 6 test items were chosen ; trunk rotation (right) (X₁), trunk lateral flexion (right) (X₂), shoulder extension (X₃), ankle extension (X₄), trunk flexion (X₅), and ankle flexion (X₆) .
Then, the following conventional fomulas for estimating each flexibility factor score were developed ; FS₁=0.9X₁-79.1, FS₂=1.9X₂ -49.6, FS₃=0.7X₃-98.9, FS₄=1.8 X₄ -250.6, FS₅ =1.3X₅ -141.7, and FS₆ = 2.5X₆ -179.3.