The purpose of this study was to examine the post activation potentiation (PAP) effect of two different conditioning stimuli (CS) on drop jump (DJ) parameters on young female gymnasts. Thirty young female artistic gymnasts, aged 8 to 13 years old performed two protocols of either double tuck jumps (DTJ: 2 sets of 5 repetitions) or legs blocking action (LBA: 2 sets of 5 repetitions) in a within-subject randomized design. Before and immediately after the PAP treatment and 4, 8, 12, and 16 min after, jumping ability was measured by performing a drop jump (DJ). Statistical analysis revealed significant interaction effect between the two CS for DJ height (p < 0.002), time flight (p < 0.002) and take-off velocity (p < 0.003). Furthermore, significant main effect was found for protocol on DJ height (p < 0.001) and time flight (p < 0.001). It is recommended to the sports experts to include similar condition stimuli in the warm-up procedure, in order to improve their jumping performance. Conclusive both CS cause PAP phenomenon but the specialized CS produces higher rates of improvements in young female artistic gymnasts.
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