Core Stability Training and Jump Performance in Young Basketball Players

The strength core is an important prerequisite to perform sport skills and to perform some everyday activities such as walking, climbing stairs, postural control. The literature, so far, it is mainly dedicated to the description of the effectiveness of core stability exercises in athletes or insedentary adults, with lumbar pain. The study describes the effects of an integrative training of core stabilityon jump performance in young basketball players. In total 44 young basketball players (19 female gender, 25 male gender, age7.07 ± 0.3yrs, height 114, 4 ± 4.3 cm weight 26.8 ± 2.7 kg) participated and were assigned to either an intervention(EG) or a control group (CG). The training program has had a duration of 4 weeks (8 sessions twice a week, for one hour); EG, besides the sports-specific exercises and introduced in the warm up 4 core exercises stability. The strength was evaluated through monopodalic and vertical jump. The results revealed that the 4-week core stability training program improved the left(p<0.05) and right (p<0.001), hop test, the 6m timed hop left and right test (p <0.0005).The CG has obtained statistically significant benefits only in the bipodalic vertical jump (p<0.01). The study confirms the need to introduce integrative core stability exercise, as well as the literature suggests. The study highlighted the functional relationships between core stability and jump performance in prepubertal basketball players.