Vertical jump and agility performance improve after an 8-week conditioning program in youth female volleyball athletes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if an 8-week combined strength and plyometric/agility offseason conditioning program improved performance on three vertical jump protocols and agility time in youth female volleyball athletes. The current study was an 8-week prospective cohort repeated measures experimental design. Eleven female youth volleyball athletes (age 15.1 ± 2.7) completed an 8-week mesocycle offseason conditioning program that consisted of two separate blocks (4-weeks each) of conditioning (strength and plyometric/agility). The first 4-weeks of conditioning included 2 x week (60 min each) of strength building exercises (weeks 1-4). The second 4-weeks of conditioning included 2 x week (60 min each) of power based ploymetric and agility exercises (weeks 5-8). All four variables significantly improved from pre- and post- testing periods. The three vertical jump protocols significantly increased in height (BVJ: 37.1 vs 40.9, p.000; CMJ: 43.9 vs 46.7, p.000; AVJ: 53.3 vs 58.7, p.001) with medium effect sizes. In addition, the agility times decreased following the 8-weeks of offseason conditioning (9C: 25.3 vs 23.6, p.000) with a large effect size (d = .871). The average improvement across the four variables was 7.7%.