Effects of 8-Week Strength Training on the Vertical Jump Performance of the Traceurs

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The parkour is a physical activity that contains special technique applications and requires a great number of jumps.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of 8-week strength training on the jump heights of thetraceurs (parkour practitioners). A total of 12 traceurs, including 6 individuals as the control group and 6 individualsas the strength group, were included in the study. The control group was provided with parkour training sessionstwice a week, and the other group provided with both strength and parkour training sessions twice a week. Eachparticipant's vertical jumps were recorded with the high-speed camera in the validated My Jump 2 application. Themean age of the traceurs control group was 19±.89 years, 173.67±4.63 cm, body mass 66.5±5.32 kg; experimentalgroup was 19.5±1.05 years, 175.83±8.86 cm, and body mass 67.67±7.20 kg. Also according to the results, it can besaid that a significant increase was observed in countermovement jump (CMJ) vertical jump heights (p=0.028) of thestudy group at the end of the 8-week strength trainings compared to the control group and that the strength trainingprovided a positive contribution to vertical jump heights. On the other hand, there was no significant difference(p=0.075) in the control group. At the same time, the CMJ height values of the participants who performed strengthtraining increased 4.97±0.09%. Learning of the vertical jump heights, which is an important parameter for successfulperformance in traceurs, can enable the coaches and athletes to prepare a better training program.