Effects of contract relax antagonist contract pnf and dynamic stretching techniques on performance measures of long distance runners

This study investigated the effect of 6-weeks of dynamic and contract- relax antagonist contract PNF stretching intervention on performance measures of long distance runners. To obtain data, the investigators had selected sixty (N=60) female long distance runners of 18-23 years of age to act as subjects The purposive sampling technique was used to select the subjects. All the subjects were purposively allotted to Contract Relax Antagonist Contract PNF (CRAC-PNF) stretching group (n1 =20); Dynamic stretching group (n2=20) & control Group (n3=20). All the subjects, after having been informed about the objective and protocol of the study, gave their consent and they volunteered to participate in this study. An Analysis of Covariance was employed to determine the intra group differences among the three groups. When a significant difference among the groups was observed, a pair-wise comparison of the groups was done by using the LSD post-hoc test to identify direction and significant differences between the groups. To test the hypothesis, the level of significance was set at 0.05. The results revealed insignificant differences among long distance runners of three groups on the balance. Significant differences were observed on the variable of agility, flexibility and muscular endurance among the three groups of long distance runners (p≤0.05). Thus, when LSD Post-Hoc test was applied to study the direction and significance of differences between the paired adjusted final means for flexibility and muscular endurance, the experimental groups were found to be significantly different when compared with the control group. It has been observed that dynamic stretching group had demonstrated significantly better on agility, flexibility and muscular endurance whereas CRAC- PNF stretching group had demonstrated better on agility than control group though not significantly. However, CRAC- PNF stretching group has demonstrated significantly better on flexibility than control. This study concludes that significant differences are observed in agility, flexibility and muscular endurance whereas insignificant differences are observed in balance with regard to long distance runners of three groups.