THE COMPARISON OF PLYOMETRIC AND RESISTANCE WARMUP PROTOCOLS ON THE RUNNING PERFORMANCE IN RECREATIONAL ATHLETES

Abstract

Background: Warm-up prepares the body to withstand the high-intensity exercises and improves the athletic performance and reduces the risk of musculoskeletal injury. Active warm-up is one of the best and commonly used techniques in athletes that can induce a special type of cardiovascular and metabolic changes that can bring prominent change in running performance. Objective: To compare resistance and plyometric warm up Protocols in recreational athletes to improve running performance. Methods: A randomized clinical trial was conducted at Aman Medical Institute Islamabad. A total n=33 recreational athletes of both genders, having total exercise load less than 5 hours per week, with normal BMI and Must fulfill the 10 minutes’ walk test on treadmill before starting the warm-up were recruited through convenience sampling technique. The sample was randomly assigned through sealed envelope method into Resistance warm up protocol (n=11), plyometric warm up protocol(n=11) and control group(n=11). The running performance was measured with lower limb power, VO2max, endurance, fatigue and time of exhaustion. The RCT was registered in national library of medicine. Data was analyzed on SPSS version 23. After checking the normality, kruskal walis test was applied to compare the groups. Results: The mean age of the participants were 21.97+1.3 years and BMI were 23.27+1.12 kg/m2. There was significant improvement in plyometric group in terms of VO2max (p=0.003), rate of perceived exertion (p<0.001), time of exhaustion (p<0.001), fatigue (p=0.002), power p=(.002), endurance (p<0.001) as compared to other groups. Conclusion: It is concluded that there was improvement in running performance in plyometric warm up protocol and resistance warm up protocol as compared to control group

Keywords

• lower limb power
• plyometric
• resistance warm up
• running performance.