Comparison of Ladder Training Versus Plyometric Training on Agility & Speed among Vadodara Cricket Players: An Experimental Study

Abstract

Background: Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world, right behind football, and it is played between 105 nations that are members of the ICC. In cricket, speed plays an essential role as the faster the speed generation the more the number of singles taken & saved during fielding. Agility is required in the infield of cricket because fielders are closer to the batsmen and have less time to react.Ladder drills improve footwork & coordination in players performance level which makes players easy to catch, strike or block or tackle. In Agility Ladder, jumps are performed without obstacles & in multidirectional ways with fast ground contact time. Aim: To compare the effect of Ladder Training versus Plyometric Training on agility & speed among cricket players. Method: 38 male cricket players (under -19) were selected by convenient sampling. Participants who met the inclusion criteria were randomly allocated into two equal groups: Ladder Training group and Plyometric Training group. Baseline data was collected by Illinois agility test & 40m Sprint test. The training duration was 3 sessions/week for 6 weeks. Results:The data was analyzed using paired – t test for within group and Unpaired – t test for between group. Results showed that both the training methods produced significant improvement in agility & speed performance but ladder training method showed statistically significant difference in agility (p<0.0001) & speed (p<0.0002) than plyometric training. Conclusion: The present study concludes that Ladder training has an added advantageous effect for improving speed and agility in cricket players over plyometric training.