TY - JOUR A1 - Chaouachi, Mehdi A1 - Granacher, Urs A1 - Makhlouf, Issam A1 - Hammami, Raouf A1 - Behm, David G. A1 - Chaouachi, Anis T1 - Within Session Sequence of Balance and Plyometric Exercises Does Not Affect Training Adaptations with Youth Soccer Athletes JF - Journal of sports science & medicine N2 - The integration of balance and plyometric training has been shown to provide significant improvements in sprint, jump, agility, and other performance measures in young athletes. It is not known if a specific within session balance and plyometric exercise sequence provides more effective training adaptations. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of using a sequence of alternating pairs of exercises versus a block (series) of all balance exercises followed by a block of plyometric exercises on components of physical fitness such as muscle strength, power, speed, agility, and balance. Twenty-six male adolescent soccer players ( 13.9 +/- 0.3 years) participated in an 8-week training program that either alternated individual balance (e. g., exercises on unstable surfaces) and plyometric (e. g., jumps, hops, rebounds) exercises or performed a block of balance exercises prior to a block of plyometric exercises within each training session. Pre- and post-training measures included proxies of strength, power, agility, sprint, and balance such as countermovement jumps, isometric back and knee extension strength, standing long jump, 10 and 30-m sprints, agility, standing stork, and Y-balance tests. Both groups exhibited significant, generally large magnitude (effect sizes) training improvements for all measures with mean performance increases of approximately > 30%. There were no significant differences between the training groups over time. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of combining balance and plyometric exercises within a training session on components of physical fitness with young adolescents. The improved performance outcomes were not significantly influenced by the within session exercise sequence. KW - Power KW - strength KW - jumps KW - sprints KW - balance KW - children Y1 - 2017 SN - 1303-2968 VL - 16 SP - 125 EP - 136 PB - Department of Sports Medicine, Medical Faculty of Uludag University CY - Bursa ER -