Peculiarities of the Influence of Fitness Special Means on the Speed and Strength and Coordination Indicators of Young Football Players

Abstract

Background: The problem of increasing coordination and conditioning abilities of young football players largely determining the level of manifestation of such motor qualities as agility, speed and strength can be solved with the help of additional means of fitness. The purpose is to study the effect of a specialized fitness program on the indicators of speed-force and coordination abilities of young football players. Material and methods: The pedagogical experiment lasted 6 months, involving 40 athletes-football players in the age of 8.97±0.04 years old (height: 139.72±1.08 cm; body mass: 31.71±0.66 kg). Children of the experimental group (n=24) were engaged in a specially designed fitness program, including exercises with different fitness equipment in the transitional mesocycle 2 times a week for 45 min, and in the preparatory one-once a week (45 min). The remaining 16 players served as a control group and continued their traditional training. Coordination abilities were determined with the help of tests "running 30 m with the ball at least 3 touches", "hitting a stationary ball from a running distance" (corridor of 10 m) and "juggling with a ball". To assess the speed and strength abilities we used "speed of running for 30 m", "long jump from a place", "pulling up from the high bar". Statistical processing was performed using Microsoft Excel and software package "STATISTICA 10.0". The parametric Student's t-test was used in the study. Differences were significant at P<0.05. Results: We found that the experimental group significantly improved the speed of running for 30 m and long jump by 5.1% and 1.9% (p<0.01), as well as the pull-up from hanging on the bar by 20.9% (p<0.01). Coordination indicators (running for 30 m with ball handling and juggling) changed more significantly by 30.7 % and 26.6 % (p<0.001), respectively. Kicking a stationary ball from a running distance changed by 4.10% (p<0.05). Conclusion: If we apply additional fitness programs with different sports equipment during the training of football players of 8-9 years old, the indicators of coordination and speed-force abilities will improve considerably.