Influences of basketball practice in maximal ankle dorsiflexion range of motion

Aim: Aim of this study is measure the influence of neuromuscular program on the upper body strenght in the young student of secondary school . Methods: One-hundred twenty-four students of secondary school ITG.S Giacomo Quarenghi of Bergamo (16±2 y-o; 62.9±8.4 kg; 174±7 cm; 20.8±3.1 kg/m2) were enrolled in a 9-wks protocol consisting of 2 session/week of 1 hour of physical education. All subjects were divided in two groups: 79 in the “experimental group” and 68 in a “control” group. The neuromuscular program of 15 min consisted in core endurance, plyometrics and strength exercises with use of body weight, whereas the control group did the normal plane of lessons of physical education. The program provides trunk and lower limbs activity, without exercise for upper limbs. Subjects were tested at baseline (BL) and week 9 (W9 ) by when upper body strength ; strength is measured with a hand grip dynamometer. Differences over time were assessed with paired T-test and differences between groups with unpaired t-test. Results were expressed as mean ±SD. Significant differences were found p<0.05. Results: All participants completed the 9 weeks program with a mean adherence of 90%. No significant differences were found at BL in the two groups. The experimental group at W9, showed significant improvements in hand grip test with dominant hand. Regarding the control group we didn’t find any significant differences at W9 compared to BL Conclusions: These results shows that isometric strength of the upper limbs in young students is significantly increased by using neuromuscular training program. References 1. Sartorio A. et al. (2002) The impact of gender, body dimension and body composition on handgrip strength in healthy children. J. Endocrinol. Invest. 25:431–435. 2.Massy-Westropp et al.: (2011) Hand Grip Strength: age and gender stratified normative data in a population-based study. BMC Research Notes 4:127. 3.Griffin LY, et al.(2005) Noncontact anterior cruciate ligament Injuries: risk factors and prevention strategies. J Am Acad Orthop Surg 2;8:141-150.