Ballistic, maximal strength and strength-endurance performance of male handball players: Are they affected by the evaluator’s sex?

This study aimed to elucidate whether ballistic, maximal strength and strength-endurance performances are affected by the sex of the evaluator. Sixteen young male handball players attended two testing sessions that only differed in the sex of the evaluators (2 women vs. 2 men). The two sessions were performed in a counterbalanced order. Ballistic performance (countermovement jump height and throwing velocity), maximal strength performance (squat and bench press [BP] one-repetition maximum [1RM]), and strength-endurance performance (number of repetitions-to-failure in BP and average velocity of the set in the squat) were assessed in both sessions. BP 1RM was greater in the presence of women evaluators (p = 0.036, ES = 0.09), whereas no differences were observed for the remaining variables (p ≥ 0.254, ES ≤ 0.19). Low correlations (r median [range] = -0.074 [-0.693, 0.326]) were observed between the different performance tests for the percent differences between both testing sessions. The sex of the evaluators has minimal influence on a number of physical traits in young male handball players when they are tested in the presence of other members of the team, while the low correlations indicate that a higher performance in one test under the presence of women does not imply a higher performance under the presence of women in other performance tests.