The Effect of Inclined Board Plyometrics on Jump Performance in Young Elite Athletes

INTRODUCTION : POWER is the king of the sporting world. Plyometrics are a type of exercise designed to produce fast and powerful movements. They are generally used by athletes to improve performance in sports, especially those that involve speed, quickness and power. Two forms of plyometrics have been evolved. The first version of plyometrics was created by Yuri Verkhoshansky where he defined it as shock method. In this the athlete would drop down from a height and experience a “shock” on landing. This in turn would bring about a forced, involuntary eccentric contraction which would then immediately get switched to concentric contraction as the athlete jumped upward. The landing and takeoff time would be executed in an extremely short period of time, the range of 0.1- 0.2 seconds. The second version of plyometrics, seen to a very great extent in the United States, relates to doing any and all forms of jumps regardless of execution time. Such jumps cannot be considered truly plyometric since the intensity of execution is much less and the time required for transitioning from the eccentric to the concentric contraction is much greater. Speed and strength are integral components of fitness found in varying degrees in all athletic movements. Simple combination of speed and strength is power. OBJECTIVES : To compare the Effect of inclined plyometric training and plane surface plyometric training. METHODOLOGY : All the subjects were randomly selected from the Deccan Gymkhana F. C. Road, Pune and after signing of consent form they were evaluated and then were given 4 weeks inclined board plyometric training protocol in Group A (experimental) and Group B (Conventional) and later were reassessed. RESULTS: 40 subjects completed the study. Comparison of pre and post Of SJT, SLHTT, THT in Group A was found to be statistically significant and that of Group B SJT, SLHTT, THT was found to be statistically significant. Comparison of VJT was found statistically insignificant between group – A & group – B (p>0.05). CONCLUSION : This Study concludes that inclined board plyometric training has an effect on the jump performance of the athletes and a significant improvement was seen on Static jump test, Single leg hop time test and Triple hop test. Key words-Inclined board plyometrics, Optimum length tension relationship, Jump performance.