Effects of Jump Training on Speed, Agility and Unilateral Jump Measures in Adolescent Rugby Players

The purposes of this study were to determine whether jump training can improve measures of speed, agility and unilateral countermovement jump (CMJ) ability, assess unilateral jump asymmetries and their impact on performance for 32 adolescent rugby players (age [years] = 17.5 ± 0.7, height [cm] = 180.8 ± 7.1, body mass [kg] = 87.6 ± 12.8) when performed in-season. Plyometric (PT; n = 13) and lateral bounding (LB; n = 12) groups completed two sessions per week of specific jump training as well as their usual training and playing programme, with a minimum of 11 sessions over 6 weeks. The control group (CG) did no additional jump training. The PT and LB groups improved but not significantly more than each other, or the CG group (n = 7) in; 10 metre (10m) sprint, p = <.001,