The Effect of Pre-Warm-Up Actions on Flexibility and Jumping Ability in Soccer Players

Author(s): Angelos E Kyranoudis, Ioannis Mylonas, Efstratios Kyranoudis, Athanasios Chatzinikolaou, Ioannis Ispyrlidis, Thomas Metaxas

A series of exercises with the use or not various instruments is applied before soccer players warm-up. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of these exercises in combination with classic soccer warm-up on ROM and jumping ability performance. Sixteen (n=16) semi-professional soccer players executed two warm-up protocols. The control protocol (CONTROL) was the classic soccer warm-up and the experimental one (EXPER) included pre-warm-up actions using foam rolling, static stretching, neuromuscular control exercises on unstable surfaces and muscle activation exercises accompanied by the classic warm-up of soccer players. The participants executed hip flexion Range of Motion (ROM) measurement and two Countermovement Jump with Arm Swing (CMJAS). Two-Way ANOVA revealed significant main effect of “time” on ROM (p<0.05) in both protocols, but no differences on CMJAS (p=0.10). Results show that pre-warm-up actions do not add further benefit in performance in ROM and CMJAS in relation to classic soccer warm-up.