Effect of the Eight-Week Agility Development Program in Elementary School Students

Abstract

The research was conducted in order to determine the effect of an eight-week agility development program (ADP) in elementary school students. Materials and methods. 107 fifth grade elementary school students from four classes randomly marked as agility development program (ADP) group (n = 55) or control (CON) group (n = 52) took part in the testing. The students had two classes of physical education per week, which is a total of 16 classes in eight weeks. ADP lasting 15 minutes was conducted within the main part of the physical education class. Both groups attended physical education classes, except that the control group had activities without a special agility development program. Two-tailed independent t-test was used to analyze differences in agility between the ADP and the CON and the change in the performance from pre- to posttests between groups. Two-tailed paired t-test was used to analyze changes in agility performance between pre- and posttests within both groups. Results. Compared with the CON, the ADP group showed significantly better performances (p≤0.05) in Zig-zag test, Illinois Agility Run test, Agility T test and Arrowhead Agility test after the training period, but not in Balsom agility test (p>0.05). Conclusions. The positive effect of the 8-week agility development program (ADP) on improving agility was determined. Therefore it can be concluded that the implemented program for the development of agility can contribute to the improvement of physical performance and various skills needed for the proper development of children.