Investigation of the effects of frontal and sagittal plane plyometric on performance

The purpose of this study was to investigate that the effects of frontal and sagittal plane plyometric training on vertical jump height (VJ), reactive strength index (RSI), percentage of body fat (BF), peak power (PP), mean power (MP) and fatigue index (FI), sprint time (ST), agility time (AT), EMG activities of the knee extensor muscles (vastus lateralis (VL) and vastus medialis (VM)) and gastrocnemius (GAS) muscle in amateur soccer players. Twenty-six amateur soccer players volunteered to participate in this study. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups (frontal plane (FP); n=9, sagittal plane (SP); n=9 and control (CG); n=8). Both experimental groups participated in a plyometric training program 3 times a week for 6 weeks and CG engaged in no training section. The total number of jumps in plyometric training was initially 100 per session, which was gradually increased to 140 per session over a period of 6 weeks. The results showed that significant improvements were found in both experimental groups (FP and SP) for all measurements from pre- to post-training (p?0,05), except FI in the SP group and BF in the all groups (p>0,05). After 6 weeks plyometric training, significantly greater improvements were observed with regard to MP, FI, 20 meters (m) ST, 30 m ST and EMG activities of GAS in FP compared to SP, while VJ, RSI, PP, 10 m ST, AT, EMG activities of VL and VM in SP compared to FP, respectively. In conclusion, this study suggests that both FP and SP plyometric training are effective at increasing important components of athletic performance in off-season for amateur soccer players. FP plyometric is highly recommended in order to improve and maintain for MP, FI, 20 m and 30 m ST and EMG activities of GAS while SP plyometric for VJ, RSI, PP, 10 m ST, AT, EMG activities of VL and VM. Accordingly, such exercises are recommended as part of an annual soccer training program.