A Study into the Effect of Varying Length of Warm Up on Performance of 400 Metre Sprint The WritePass Journal

A Study into the Effect of Varying Length of Warm Up on Performance of 400 Metre Sprint Abstract A Study into the Effect of Varying Length of Warm Up on Performance of 400 Metre Sprint )   looked at stretch warm-ups performed for varying amounts of time before sprint. They found that sprints performed within 5 minutes of warm-up were adversely effected by sets of stretches, however their studies involved 10 and 20 metre sprints only, and their sample set contained only 16 athletes.  Ã‚   There are relatively few studies exploring.   Hajoglou et al (2005) look at the impact of warm up time, but upon performance in cycle trials. They found that 4-5 minute endurance cycling trials were performed better after warm up, but found no evidence for warm-up duration having an impact.  Ã‚   Arnett (2002) looked at the difference between prolonged and reduced warm ups, and found increased duration of warm up was not beneficial to performance,  Ã‚   but this study examined swim performance. Therefore, while a number of studies explore the types of warm-up activities which work best, less attention has been paid to the relationship between time spent on warm-up and performance.   Additionally, some studies use different types of athlete, and are hence less relevant to sprinters. For example, studies carried out amongst rugby players can offer only limited insights to sprint performance.   To the extent that existing studies look at sprint, they also tend to look at short sprint performance, typically 30m or less. In the light of this, it is felt that the current study will add new insights into   the understanding of how to achieve optimum sprint performance.  Ã‚   Not only has the link between warm-up time and sprint performance been under-investigated, there is no investigation at all of the impact of different warm up times on 400m sprint.  Ã‚   There seems to be mixed evidence about the impact of warm up generally on performance, both in sprint and other types of sport. The following research hypothesis will therefore be tested by the study: Length of time spent on warm up has an impact upon performance in 400m sprint. A number of research questions will be investigated in the study: Does length of time spent in warm up have an effect upon sprint performance? What length warm up time is associated with fastest sprint performance? What are the mechanisms linking warm up time and sprint performance? 3. Methodology This section sets out the way in which the research study will be carried out. It divides into logical subsections to cover the different areas involved. 3.1 Participants The study will involve 40 athletes.   For the purposes of this study, athletes are restricted to men and women aged 16-30 who take part in competitive running at least once a month, who are a member of a sports club or association, and who train daily for at least an hour.  Ã‚   The researcher will contact a number of sports bodies including local running clubs and the university running association in the first instance, to find suitable participants to take part.  Ã‚   Initially, contact will be made by the administrative secretary or similar by telephone or email to explain the purpose of the study, and to request help in finding suitable candidates to take part. Care will be taken to ensure that the sample is representative of the wider population of interest (sprinters), and that bias is avoided in the selection procedure (Monsen and Horn 2007). 3.2 Materials and Procedure The study will involve 40 athletes performing the same warm up routine. The routine includes jogging as well as dynamic and static stretching. Each athlete will perform a 5 minute warm up, then their performance running the 400 metres will be timed.   Two days later, the same athletes will be timed running, this time after a 10 minute warm up. This will be repeated twice, each time after two days, and each time increasing the warm up time by 10 minutes (to 20 minutes and 30 minutes).  Ã‚   The aim is to investigate which warm up time produces the same results. One issue with this approach is ensuring that conditions are equivalent on each day that the test is carried out. If weather conditions differ, this may cause differences in running speed (Hawley 2000).   Equally, diet variations or other variations personal to the athletes might cause changes in recorded running speed, but these are less of a problem as, unlike the weather, they will probably not affect all the athletes who take part.  Ã‚   One way of dealing with results being impacted by variables aside from the one tested would be to randomly assign athletes into four groups, each of these are tested on the same day, and each warms up for a particular length of time. However, this would reduce the sample size for each group, and larger sample sizes yield more reliable results (Ware and Brewer 1999).   The first procedure will therefore be adopted. Because the study involves human subjects, ethical considerations need to be observed to ensure that no one involved comes to any harm or gains unfair advantage by being included in the study. 3.3 Data Analysis The data will be quantitative in nature (that is, expressed as numbers rather than text).   It will be entered into a statistical computer programme, such as SPSS, in order to carry out descriptive and other statistical tests. The ANOVA test will be performed on the data. It is a   widely used statistical procedure which compares data from investigations where there are more than 2 conditions. Rather than using several t-tests to compare means, the ANOVA test compares all sets of results, to indicate whether the results differ significantly from condition to condition (Brace et al 2006). 4. Conclusion The above has given an overview of the methodology and relevant literature for this proposed research study, looking at whether variations in warm up time have an impact upon performance for athletes completing a 400 metre sprint. 4. References Alter, M J (2004) Science of flexibility (3rd edn.), Human Kinetics, USA Arnett, M G (2002) ‘Effects of prolonged and reduced warm-ups on diurnal variation in body temperature and swim performance’, Journal of Strength Conditioning Research, 16:2, 256-261 Binnie, M J, Landers, G and Peeling, P (2011) ‘Effect of different warm-up procedures on subsequent swim and overall sprint distance triathlon performance’, Journal of Strength and Conditioning   Research. Bishop, D (2003) ‘Warm Up II: Performance Changes Following Active Warm Up and How to Structure the Warm Up’,   Sports Medicine, 33:7, 483-498. 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