Impact of Short Sprints and Alternate Pace Running on Selected Speed and Agility among Varsity Men Students

The purpose of this study was to find out the effects of short sprints and alternate pace running on selected speed and agility among varsity men students. To achieve this purpose of the study, forty-five men students studying in the Department of Physical Education, Annamalai University were selected as subjects at random and they were divided into three equal groups of fifteen subjects each with age ranging from 18 to 24 years namely short sprints group, alternate pace running group and control group. The short sprints group and alternate pace running group underwent their respective trainings for three days per week for twelve weeks in which the control group did not participate any special training programme apart from their regular physical education activities as per their curriculum. The following variables, namely speed and agility were selected as criterion variables. All the subjects of the three groups were tested on selected dependent variables by using 50 mts run and shuttle run at prior to and immediately after the training programme. The analysis of covariance was used to analyze the significant difference if any among the groups. Since three groups were compared, whenever the obtained ‘F’ ratio for adjusted posttest was found to be significant, the Scheffee’s test to find out the paired mean differences, if any. The .05 level of confidence was fixed as the level of significance to test the ‘F’ ratio obtained by the analysis of covariance, which was considered appropriate. The results of the study showed that there was a significant difference among short sprints group alternate pace running group and control group on speed and agility. And there was a significant improvement on selected criterion variables due to short sprints and alternate pace running.