The Acute Effect of a Sport-Specific Stretching Routine on the Performance of Vertical Jumps in Rhythmic Gymnasts

Silva GF, Almeida AR, Rodrigues SA, Szmuchrowski LA, Silva RAD, Drummond MDM. The Acute Effect of a SportSpecific Stretching Routine on the Performance of Vertical Jumps in Rhythmic Gymnasts. JEPonline 2018;21(2):30-39. The purpose of this study was to investigate the acute effect of a specific flexibility training session on the height of a countermovement jump (CMJ) in Rhythmic Gymnastics (RG) Athletes. The subjects in this study were 13 female athletes with a mean age of 14.5 ± 2.43 yrs. After familiarization with the CMJ, the subjects performed the two evaluation sessions with a 48-hr interval between the two sessions. The athletes performed the CMJ tests without and with a predetermined stretch routine, which had pre-defined parameters specific to the modality. The results demonstrated a significant reduction in the height of the vertical jumps in the second session, compared to the first session (P=0.0001). Therefore, the modality-specific stretching protocol that was used generated an acute negative effect on the athletes’ CMJ performance.