Effectiveness of a Sports-Specific Warm-Up Protocol versus a Conventional Training Program in Badminton Players: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Background: Badminton is a sport in which players use a combination of speed, endurance, strength and coordination over lengthy, high-intensity actions that are broken up by rest breaks. In sports, a warm-up is a pre-exercise session intended to improve performance in competition or training. Training that has been introduced into training programs involves properly warming up the body before physical exercise. To Compare the Effectiveness of Sports Specific Warm Up Protocol versus Conventional Training Programme in Badminton players.

Material and Method: The study was Quasi experimental in nature involved 30 males subjects, aged 18 to 30 years, who were playing Badminton at least thrice a week were included in the study as per the selection criteria. All subjects were enrolled in the study after taking their informed written consent and were divided into two groups through simple random sampling method Group A (n=15) and Group B (n=15). Group A received Sports Specific Warm Up Protocol (SSWP) and Group B received Conventional Training Programme (CTP). The subjects were assessed for agility, vertical height and speed using Agility t test, Vertical jump height and General speed test. The intervention consisted of 4 sessions per week over duration of 6 weeks. The subjects were reassessed at the end of the intervention that is after 6th week.

Result: Statistical analysis revealed significant improvement within both group. However, between group comparison demonstrated that group A exhibited statistically significant improvement (p< 0.001) than Group B across all outcome measures, including agility test, vertical jump test, and general speed test.

Conclusion: The present study concluded that a Sports-Specific Warm-Up Protocol is more effective than a Conventional Training Programme in improving vertical jump, speed, and agility in badminton players.