ORIGINAL ARTICLE  EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOMECHANICS 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2022 January;62(1):25-38

DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.21.12086-9

Copyright © 2021 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Effect of three fitness programs on strength, speed, flexibility and muscle power on sedentary subjects

Habil HAMDOUNI ^{1, 2} ✉, Brian KLISZCZEWICZ ³, Hassane ZOUHAL ⁴, Fatma RHIBI ⁵, Fatma Z. BEN SALAH ¹, Abderraouf BEN ABDERRAHMAN ²

¹ Department of Medicine Physical and Functional Rehabilitation, M.T. Kassab National Institute of Orthopedics, Tunis, Tunisia; ² Higher Institute of Sport and Physical Education of Ksar-Said, Manouba University, Manouba, Tunisia; ³ Department of Exercise Science and Sport Management, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA, USA; ⁴ Movement, Sport, Health and Sciences Laboratory (M2S), UFR/APS, University of Rennes 2 - École Normale Supérieure de Cachan, Rennes, France; ⁵ Hypoxia and Pathophysiology of Cardiovascular and Respiratory (Hp2) Laboratory, INSERM U1042, University of Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble, France

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to research and compare the effect of Crossfit^® (CF), LesMills^® (LM) and traditional resistance (TRAD) training program on short performances.
METHODS: Participants were assigned randomly into three groups and followed the training sessions allocated at the rate of five sessions/week for 16 weeks. A battery of tests including anthropometric and performance measures were carried out over three sessions: before training (T0), after eight weeks (T1) and sixteen weeks of training (T2).
RESULTS: Findings indicated that strength tests demonstrated a significant time effect (P<0.001, ηp²=0.6), the results showed that CF and TRAD groups improved strength every 8 weeks while LM group only at T2, The speed test demonstrated also a significant time effect (P<0.001, ηp²=0.5) the results showed an improvement in speed every 8 weeks for LM, at T2 for CF and no change for TRAD, for flexibility, all tests demonstrated a main time effect (P<0.001, ηp². 0.46-0.7) CF was the best in shoulder range of motion and LM in trunk and lower limb flexibility, all power tests also demonstrated a significant time effect (P<0.001, ηp²: 0.76-0.9) the improvement for all groups was every 8 weeks.
CONCLUSIONS: Based on these findings, we recommend TRAD and CF as valuable trainings for strength development, LM for flexibility and all three trainings for power improvement.

KEY WORDS: Physical fitness; Exercise; Athletic performance