Warm-up protocols have the potential to cause an acute enhancement of dynamic sprinting performance.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of three repetition specific gluteal activation warm-up protocols on acceleration performance in male rugby union players.

Forty male academy rugby union players were randomly assigned to one of 4 groups (control, 5, 10 or 15 repetition gluteal activation group). They performed 10m sprints at baseline and 30s, 2, 4, 6 and 8min after their specific intervention protocol. 5m and 10m sprint times were the dependent variable and dual-beam timing gates were used to record all sprint times. Repeated measures analysis of variance found no significant improvement in 5 and 10 m sprint times between baseline and post warm-up scores (p ≥ 0.05) for all groups.

There were no reported significant differences between groups at any of the rest interval time points (p ≥ 0.05). However, when individual responses to the warm-up protocols were analysed, the 15 repetition gluteal activation group had faster 10m times post-intervention. This improvement was significant (p = 0.021).

These results would indicate that there is no specific rest interval for any of the gluteal interventions that results in a potentiation effect on acceleration performance. However, the individual response analysis would seem to indicate that a 15 repetition gluteal activation warm-up protocol has a potentiating effect on acceleration performance provided that the rest interval is adequately and individually determined.

For Full Article