Relationship between aerobic and anaerobic parameters and functional classification in wheelchair basketball players

Participation in sports for individuals with disabilities continues to gain popularity. In order to provide fair and equitable competition among persons with different disabilities and functional capacity, a separate functional classification system has been devised for each sport. The aims of the present study were to evaluate aerobic and anaerobic performance of wheelchair basketball athletes and verify a correlation with the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation functional classification system. For this, 17 highly trained male Brazilian basketball wheelchair athletes (25.4±4.4 years) from the national team who had taken part in the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games were assessed. These athletes were submitted to cardiopulmonary exercise testing and Wingate‐like 30‐s sprint test using upper limbs. The present study demonstrated that the functional classification score correlated with relative (r=0.90; P