Bilateral practice improves dominant leg performance in long jump

Benefits of bilateral practice both for the non-dominant and for the dominant body side have been shown in several studies. Thereby, most of the studies included movement tasks of the upper extremity or investigated sports games in which the ability of acting bilaterally is an essential basis for su...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of sport science 2016-10, Vol.16 (7), p.787-793
Main Authors: Focke, Anne, Spancken, Sina, Stockinger, Christian, Thürer, Benjamin, Stein, Thorsten
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Athletic Performance - physiology
bilateral training
Bilateral transfer
Child
Cohort Studies
contralateral transfer
crosslimb education
Female
Humans
lower extremity
Lower Extremity - physiology
Male
Track and Field - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Benefits of bilateral practice both for the non-dominant and for the dominant body side have been shown in several studies. Thereby, most of the studies included movement tasks of the upper extremity or investigated sports games in which the ability of acting bilaterally is an essential basis for success and, thus, a bilateral practice is reasonable anyway. Individual unilaterally performed sports including movement tasks of the lower extremity are rarely investigated. Therefore, the aim of our study was to test if contralateral transfer due to bilateral practice can be found in an unilaterally performed sport including the lower extremity. We trained and tested 61 adolescent athletes in long jump to compare the jumping performance of the dominant leg after a 12-week practice period between two groups: a bilateral practice group that practiced specific long jump exercises with both the dominant and non-dominant leg and an unilateral practice group that practiced specific long jump exercises only with the dominant leg. Results showed a superior effect of bilateral practice compared to unilateral practice regarding the jumping performance of the dominant leg. The performance increase at post-test and retention-test for the dominant limb was significantly higher for the bilateral practice group (pre-to-post: 5.2%, pre-to-retention: 7.4%) compared to the unilateral practice group (pre-to-post: 3.4%, pre-to-retention: 4.5%). Thus, bilateral practice should be established in the early practice programmes of track and field athletes to improve the performance of the dominant take-off leg.
ISSN:1746-1391
1536-7290
DOI:10.1080/17461391.2016.1141996