Effectiveness of the Abbreviated Progressive Muscle Relaxation Intervention on Problems of Motor Coordination in Soccer Players

• Main Authors: Naresh Bhaskar, Raj, Srilekha, Saha, Soumendra, Saha, Nurfarah Ezzaty, Mohd Zahir
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: RC1200 Sports Medicine
• Online Access: http://eprints.unisza.edu.my/4736/1/FH02-FPSK-15-02387.pdf; http://eprints.unisza.edu.my/4736/

The present study was undertaken with an objective to study the effect of psychotherapeutic training on improvement of coordination in performance of soccer skills. Eighty one young male soccer players of the city of Kota Bharu in Kelantan province of Malaysia, in the age range of 18.6 to 20.9 years, volunteered as participants. They were assessed with transient anxiety; simple and complexreaction ability; motor coordination; psychobiological measures of tonic and phasic skin conductance activity; assessment of muscle potentiality and soccer agility and soccer juggling skill as measure of preintervention analyses. Thereafter, they were randomly and equally categorized into three groups; viz. Group A (N = 27), i.e. control group who didn’t receive any intervention; Group B(N = 27) referred to as the Experimental Group I, who received Abbreviated Progressive Muscle Relaxation or APMR andGroup C (N = 27), hereafter the Experimental Group II, who received active relaxation training. Both of the interventions were introduced to the respective group following standardize protocol (20 minutes/day; 2 days/week for12 weeks). Mid-term analyses (on all of the parameters of pre-intervention analyses were repeated) were done six weeks after the introduction of intervention sessions. Thereafter interventions continued following the similar protocol for six more weeks. Post-intervention analyses following similar analyses protocols were done on all of the participants, and the findings revealed that both APMR and active relaxation training had beneficial impacts on enhancement in autonomic adaptation, whereas compared to active relaxation training, APMR had relatively better beneficial impacts on the level of coordination performancesof the soccer players. Furthermore, due to enhanced coordination performances, significant improvement in soccer juggling performance and in soccer agility was observed in the players who received APMR training.