Comparison between immediate effects of post isometric relaxation and reciprocal inhibition techniques on hamstring flexibility in patients with hamstring tightness: An experimental study

Abstract

Aim: There are studies comparing the effects of post isometric relaxation technique & reciprocal inhibition technique on hamstring muscle flexibility but to the best of our knowledge there is hardly any study that has reported comparative immediate effect of these two techniques. Thus the aim of our study was to evaluate the immediate effect of these two techniques on hamstring muscle flexibility. Method: The research design used was Comparative Experimental study design. Total 46 participants were screened and those meeting the inclusion criteria (n=40) were included in the study. The participants were randomly divided into two groups-group A-post isometric relaxation and Group B-reciprocal inhibition of 20 each. Pre and immediate post intervention scores were measured in terms of AKET Findings: Inter group comparison (student’s unpaired t test) showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of AKET. The comparison of pre and post intervention values of the outcome measure in both the groups showed a statistically significant difference. Conclusion: It can be concluded from the present study that both post isometric relaxation technique & reciprocal inhibition technique have an immediate effect on reducing hamstring muscle tightness. From the mean difference values it is visible that PIR (13.20) is slightly more effective than RI (5.45) although statistically significant difference is not seen.