Performance Enhancement Following a Strength and Injury Prevention Program: A 26-Week Individualized and Supervised Intervention in Adolescent Female Volleyball Players

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a 26-week individualized and supervised strength and injury prevention program on performance enhancement in young female volleyball players who completed resistance training with either a supervised and individualized training program (experimental group, n=10) or an unsupervised nonindividualized training program (control group, n=17). Exposure and injury data were collected during the 2006-2007 season (baseline season) and the 26-week program was conducted during the 2007-2008 season (intervention season). All players were tested for physical performance. At post-test, the players in the experimental group had improved significantly more than the players in the control group for squat (p<0.0001), bench press (p=0.048), push-ups (p=0.02) and sit-ups (p<0.0001) but not for the vertical jump test. Thirty-five percent (6/17) of the players from the control group and 80% (8/10) of the players in the experimental group completed the resistance training with compliance of no less than 50%. The present study shows the importance of individualization and supervision for resistance training in young female athletes when it comes to compliance, strength gains and performance.