EFFECTS OF FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH TRAINING (FST) ON POWER AND STRENGTH BY CARRYING LOAD AMONG ELITE ATHLETES

Abstract

Functional training is a training that designed to help people to adapt the training with more specific and applicable by imitating the movement patterns that occurs in their characteristic sport or activity. There is lack of evidences that supporting the effectiveness of this training to young people and elite athletes. The purposes of this study was to determine the effect of Functional Strength Training (FST) on power and strength by carrying loads among elite hockey’s players. The subjects for this study are elite hockey’s players trained male (N=32) that were divided randomly into two groups (FT, n = 21; TRT, n=21). The variables included strength endurance (1 minute push up and 1 minute pull up test) and power (single leg triple hop and standing broad jump test). The training program consisted of 4 training session per week through 8 weeks. Pre- and post-training of intragroup were established using pair sample t-test. The independent samples t-test was used to detect the inter-group differences. In this study, results demonstrated that there is statistically significant effect of Functional Strength Training (FST) on power and strength endurance by the elite athletes. The results also demonstrated the significantly differences of TRT on power as TRT increased the energetic potential of trained athlete which resulting in increasing of power, while FT improved muscular fitness especially for postural control and precise coordination. Limitations of study are noted and further studies of the extension of Functional Strength Training are needed to improve their present training method and the effect of the training on health related fitness.