Comparative Study of Male and Female Athletes about Effect of Stretching Exercises on Flexibility
Abstract
The present experimental research investigated the effectiveness of the stretching exercises to flexibility and Eighty athletes selected of age 18-24 years included (N=40) Female and (N=40) male athletes selected from different Universities of Punjab. The selected individuals divided into female and male group’s separately along with 6 weeks training sessions, have stretching protocol which included separate sessions along with warm-up sessions. The six weeks stretching program showed improvement of 2.8% in female group and 1.7% in the male group respectively. The female stretching training revealed 1.1% more improvement as compared with male group. A group of control subjects (N=40) were also maintained for further comparison. The flexibility was measured through sit and reach test evaluated before training sessions as a pre-exercise and after 6 weeks as a post-exercise measurement. Pre and post-exercise evaluation had been analyzed by paired sample test and effect size of subjects also calculated through Cohen’s D resulted 1.41 and 3.55 respectively. The subjects were followed for 4 months and check the recurrence rate of injuries, resulted 12.2% injuries in control group subjects while intervention group showed 7% and 9% respectively.
Authors
Sana Tallat
Lecturer, Department of Sports Sciences and Physical Education, Govt. College for Women Township Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Sajjad Ali Gill
Lecturer, Department of Sports Sciences and Physical Education, The University of the Punjab, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Zain Arshad
Student, Department of Sports Sciences and Physical Education, The University of the Punjab, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan