Different orders of passive flexibility exercises in elasticity gain among militaries

Abstract

Introduction: This study aimed at verifying the influence of different orders of exercise in joint magnitude improvement. Materials and Methods: Sixty soldiers (18.4±0.7 years old, males) participated in the study and were divided into three groups of 20 subjects: G1-protocol A (training of large to small joints), G2-protocol B (small to large joints) and G3 (Control Group). The G1 and G2 trained through the passive method. Stretch was evaluated using the protocol of Labifie. Four motions were measured: horizontal shoulder extension, lumbar column flexion, hip flexion and knee flexion. The intervention lasted 12 weeks with three sessions each week, consisting of three sets of ten seconds each exercise. For the evaluation of the average, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Scheffé post-hoc was used. The significance level was set at p<0.05. Results: The results showed significant improvement in the stretch of G1 and G2 in the four motions with no improvement in G3. There were no significant differences between G1 and G2. Discussion: There is probably no benefit on the stretch gain in the four studied joints concerning the order of training exercises in the method of passive stretching. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR