Acute Effects of Complex Conditioning Activities on Athletic Performance and Achilles Tendon Stiffness in Male Basketball Players

Abstract

The goal of this study was to compare the effects of a bilateral conditioning activity consisting of back squats and drop jumps with a unilateral one consisting of split squats and depth jumps to lateral hop over sequentially performed countermovement jump (CMJ), modified t-agility test (MAT), and Achilles tendon stiff-ness. Twenty-six basketball players participated in this study and were randomly and equally assigned to one of two different test groups: bilateral (B-CA) or unilateral (U-CA) conditioning activity group. The B-CA group completed 2 sets of 4 repetitions of back squats at 80% of one-repetition maximum (1RM), then 10 drop jumps, while the U-CA group performed 2 sets of 2 repetitions of split squats on each leg at 80%1RM, followed by 5 depth jumps to lateral hop on each leg as conditioning activity (CA) complexes. After a warm-up and 5 min before the CA the baseline Achilles tendon stiffness, CMJ, and MAT time measure-ment were performed. In the 6th min after the CA, all tests were re-tested in the same order. The two-way repeated measures mixed ANOVAs revealed that both B-CA and U-CA failed to produce significant improvements in CMJ and MAT perfor-mance. In addition, a significant increase in Achilles stiffness was demonstrated with both protocols (a main effect of time: p = 0.017; effect size = 0.47; medium). This study revealed that combining back squats and drop jumps, as well as split squats and depth jumps to a lateral hop, had no effect on subsequent CMJ and MAT performance in basketball players. Based on these re-sults, it can be assumed that combinations of exercises, even if they have similar movement patterns, may cause excessive fa-tigue, resulting in no PAPE effect.