Acute effect of different warm up protocols on static and dynamic balance indices and balance the vault in skilled female gymnast

  Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate the acute effects of different warm-up protocols on static and dynamic balance indices and balance the vault in skilled female gymnast.   Materials and Methods: Twenty four skilled female gymnasts (mean age 9.66­±­1.43 years( were selected. Subjects have been randomly divided into three groups: general warm-up (control), general warm-up and static stretching and general warm-up and dynamic stretching. The first protocol included a 10 minute general warming up, the second protocol involved general warm-up followed by the use of static stretching and the third protocol included general warm-up followed by dynamic stretching the muscles involved in performing the balance whip. Before and after the activity, the indicators of the equilibrium of anterior-posterior and internal-external pressure fluctuations range, and track length of the anterior-posterior and internal-external pressure center in four static and dynamic situations (both with one leg, and with two legs) were investigated using a dynamometer system equipped with 7 cameras and Kistler force plate.   Results: The whip balance performance with dynamic warm-up protocol was significantly higher than general warm-up protocol (P=0.001) and static warm-up protocol (P=0.01). Also the whip balance performance significantly decreased after the static warm-up protocol (P=0.005), but no significant differences were observed in the control group (P ;ge0.05). Static balance with both feet in the dynamic warm-up protocol showed no significant difference in compare to general warm-up (P=0.07) and static warm-up protocols (P=0.06) (P ;ge0.05). Also between the static warm-up protocol and the control group no significant difference was observed (P ;ge0.05). On the other hand, no significant difference was observed between the static balance with one foot, dynamic balance with two feet and dynamic balance with one foot (P ;ge0.05).   Conclusion: Our study showed that dynamic warm-up resulted in further improvement in whip balance in compare to static and general warm-ups. Also, in clinical point of view, dynamic warm-up, in comparison with static and general warm-ups, leaded to further improvement in dynamic and static balance indices although, these findings were not statically significant.