The acute effect of plyometric exercise on speed and agility performance among youth hockey players

This study investigated the acute effects of incorporating alternate-leg bounding into a warm-up routine on sprint acceleration and change-of-direction performance among twenty female youth hockey players aged fourteen to sixteen in Malaysia. Employing a true experimental randomized crossover design with a forty-eight-hour washout period, participants completed both a plyometric warm-up featuring five bounds per leg and a standard dynamic hockey warm-up. Performance was evaluated immediately following each warm-up using a ten-meter sprint test for linear acceleration and the Illinois Agility Test for agility. Statistical analysis using paired-samples t-tests for normal sprint data alongside Wilcoxon signed-rank and Mann-Whitney U tests for non-normal agility data demonstrated the potential performance impact of post-activation performance enhancement via horizontal plyometric conditioning in adolescent female athletes.