Acute effects of weighted plyometric exercise on sprint, agility and jump performance in university football players

Background: Conditioning activities such as resistance training can cause excitation of central nervous system resulting in Post-activation Potentiation phenomenon. Plyometric exercise also has an important role to develop Post-activation Potentiation following a resistance stimulus. So the purpose the study was to investigate the immediate effects of weighted plyometric exercise on sprint, agility and jump performance. Materials and methods: Twenty male university football players (age=21.3±1.5 years, body mass=63.3±9.5 kg, height=169.8±6.4 m) participated in this Single group pre-test post-test study. Agility Time (AT), Sprint Time (ST) and Counter-Movement Jump (CMJ) height were measured prior to and 1st and 5th minutes following plyometric exercise. Results: A repeated measures ANOVA employed at baseline (T0), 1 minute (T1), and 5 minutes (T5) post intervention showed significant effect for all the three outcome measures (p<0.001). Post-hoc Bonferroni pairwise comparison showed a significant decrease in both AT and ST from baseline to assessments at both T1 (p<0.001) and T5 (p<0.001), whereas there was a significant increase in the CMJ height. However, no statistical difference was found between T1 and T5 (p=0.058) in ST, but AT was significantly lower at T5 than at T1 (p=0.008), and CMJ height showed significant increase from T1 to T5 (p=0.001). Conclusion: Our results suggest that weighted plyometric exercises have an acute response on sprint, agility and counter movement jump (CMJ Height) following Post-Activation Potentiation (PAP) effect developed after plyometric exercises.