The Effects of Frontal- and Sagittal-Plane Plyometrics on Change-of-Direction Speed and Power in Adolescent Female Basketball Players
in International Journal of Sports Physiology and PerformanceClick name to view affiliation
Plyometrics is a popular training modality for basketball players to improve power and change-of-direction speed. Most plyometric training has used sagittal-plane exercises, but improvements in change-of-direction speed have been greater in multidirection programs.
Purpose:
To determine the benefits of a 6-wk frontal-plane plyometric (FPP) training program compared with a 6-wk sagittal-plane plyometric (SPP) training program with regard to power and change-of-direction speed.
Methods:
Fourteen female varsity high school basketball players participated in the study. Multiple 2 × 2 repeated-measures ANOVAs were used to determine differences for the FPP and SPP groups from preintervention to postintervention on 4 tests of power and 2 tests of change-of-direction speed.
Results:
There was a group main effect for time in all 6 tests. There was a significant group × time interaction effect in 3 of the 6 tests. The SPP improved performance of the countermovement vertical jump more than the FPP, whereas the FPP improved performance of the lateral hop (left) and lateral-shuffle test (left) more than the SPP. The standing long jump, lateral hop (right), and lateral-shuffle test (right) did not show a significant interaction effect.
Conclusions:
These results suggest that basketball players should incorporate plyometric training in all planes to improve power and change-of-direction speed.
McCormick, Hannon, Newton, Shultz, and Detling are with the Dept of Exercise and Sport Science, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT. Young is with the Discipline of Human Movement and Sport Sciences, Federation University Australia, Ballarat, VIC, Australia.
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