The effect of kettlebell training on strength and anaerobic power in male basketball players

Objective: The aim of this study is to examine the effect of 8-week kettlebell training to be applied to basketball players on strength and anaerobic power. Material and Methods: Basketball players competing in Nazilli Büyükşehir Belediye Sports Club and Aydın Akademi Sports Club in Aydın province participated in the study. They were divided into experimental group (n=12) and control group (n=12). Anthropometric measurements, strength and anaerobic power measurements of the participants were taken as a pre-test before starting the kettlebell exercises. Then, after eight weeks of kettlebell exercises, post-tests were made and the difference was statistically examined. Kettlebell exercise was not performed on the control group participants. The experimental group and the control group applied the same basketball training program throughout the research. Except for the control group, the experimental group did Kettlebell exercises for one hour, three times a week, for 8 weeks in addition to basketball training. In order to evaluate the strength of the participants, 1 maximum-rep squat and 1 maximum-rep bench press test were applied. Vertical jump test was applied to determine their anaerobic power. Results: According to the pre-test measurements and the results of the independent sample t-test applied between the experimental and control groups, no statistically significant difference was found in favor of the experimental group in the vertical jump, Bench press Repetition Maximum (RM) and Squat RM tests (p<0.05). According to the results of the dependent sample t test applied to evaluate the difference between the vertical jump pretest and posttest measurements of the experimental group, a statistically significant difference was reached in favor of the posttest scores (p<0.05). According to the results of the dependent sample t test applied to evaluate the difference between the Bench press RM pretest and posttest measurements of the experimental group, a statistically significant difference was found in favor of the posttest scores (p<0.05). A statistically significant difference was found in favor of the post-test in the dependent sample t-test results applied to evaluate the difference between the Bench press RM pre-test and post-test of the control group (p<0.05). According to the results of the dependent sample t test applied to evaluate the difference between the Anaerobic Power Watt pretest and posttest measurements of the experimental group, a statistically significant difference was found in favor of the posttest scores (p<0.05). Conclusion: As a result of this study, there were significant differences between kettlebell exercises for strength and anaerobic power development in basketball players. Keywords: Anaerobic Power, Basketball, Kettlebell, Strength,