Comparative Effects of Circuit Training Programme on Speed and Power of Pre- and Post- Menarcheal Girls

This study examined the Comparative Effects of Circuit Training Programme on Speed and Power of Pre- and Post-Menarcheal girls. A pre-test- posttest control group experimental design was used to carry out the study. A total of 80 Secondary School girls from St. Peter's College, Olomore, Abeokuta, in Ogun State of Nigeria, ages 10-17 years took part in the study. The subjects were not involved in competitive school sports. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 40 pre-menarceal and 40 postmenarcheal girls who were later randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. At the end of the training programme, 40 subjects completed the post training measurements, so there were 10 subjects in each of the four study groups (pre-menarcheal experimental, pre-menarcheal control, post-menarcheal control, post-menarcheal experimental, postmenarcheal control groups). The data collected were subjected to descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics of Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) (2-ways) using the difference score method to test the hypotheses for the study at 0.05 level of significance. Where there was any significant F, Scheffe post-hoc analysis was used for further analysis. The result showed that in general, maturation and training accounted for a lot of the differences in the performance of the study groups. There was no significant difference in power of pre- and post- menacheal girls as a result of 12-weeks circuit training programme. The findings also indicated that the main effects of factor A (Status: pre- and post- menarcheal girls) and factor B (Study Conditions: Experimental and Control) were statistically significant. The effects of the training on speed was significantly better for pre-menarcheal girls than for post-menarcheal girls (Post test 9.32; 9.56). Subjects in the experimental groups had better power than those in the control groups. The Implications of this study are that exercise training such as the circuit used in this study can make observable differences in speed and power of adolescents. Effective exercise training programmes should therefore be considered as an integral and inevitable aspect of school curriculum. African Journal of Educational Studies in Mathematics and Sciences Vol. 5 2007: pp. 35-42