Effect of Low Intensity Plyometric Training Combined with Different Muscle Relaxation Techniques on Speed of Junior Athletes

This study aimed to investigate the effect of low intensity plyometric training combined with different muscle relaxation techniques on speed of junior athletes.

The experimental study enrolled 60 junior athletes from Shree Bharath Vidyaashram, Chennai. The age ranged between 11 to 13 years, who were selected to carry out the research. The subjects who met the inclusion criteria were selected using random sampling and divided into three intervention groups and a control group. The test items used to collect the speed tested by 50 meters run test and performance recorded in seconds. The 12 weeks of stipulated training was provided to the participants for the period of 60-minute sessions for the three alternative days in a week.

To process the results of the study, analysis of the data was done with the IBM SPSS Statistics 22 software. The statistics obtained were provided by paired sample t-test. The improvement percentage was assessed by using the formula of “%Δ = (x post-test – x pre-test) / pre-test * 100.”. The level of confidence was fixed at 95% and values below p<0.05 were considered significant.

The paired sample t-test showed a significant (p<0.05) improvement in speed over the 12 weeks of stipulated training.

The results indicate considerable significant improvement on speed was observed. The findings indicate that the selected training regimes led to significant improvement on speed.