EFFECT OF PLYOMETRIC TRAINING AND SAQ TRAINING FOLLOWED BY DETRAINING ON AGILITY OF INTER-COLLEGIATE LEVEL FOOTBALLERS

: Thirty male soccer players aged between 18 and 26 years from Nirmala college in Ernakulam District, Kerala were selected. They were randomly divided into three groups of ten each, out of which group I (n = 10) consisted of SAQ (speed, agility, quickness) training, group II (n = 10) consisted Plyometric training and group III (n = 10) consisted control group. The dependant variable was agility. The season of training period was divided into three. The first training season was later pre-season, which consisted of four weeks of training with three days (three sessions) of training and before the training session was a rest day. The second training season was the In-season, which consisted of two weeks with two days (two sessions) of training and before the training session was a rest day. The third training season was in the closed-season, which consisted of two weeks. The subjects of SAQ group and Plyometric group were made to undergo de-training. Pre-test was conducted for all the three groups before giving the training and post-test was conducted after 6 weeks of training. The de-training effect was measured after the two weeks of de-training. The statistical technique used was ANCOVA. The results of the study showed that SAQ training improved agility better than Plyometric training. The results of the 2 weeks de-training programme showed that SAQ training improved agility better than Plyometric training among the male inter-collegiate level footballers.


INTRODUCTION
Soccer practitioners require many attributes to become successful players. These include cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, endurance, flexibility, agility, coordination, skill and tactical knowledge [1]. Few players possess 'natural ability' in all areas. Indeed, the vast majority of players undergo training programmes, in some or all attributes, to improve their ability on the field. An understanding of basic anatomy and physiology and knowledge of muscle actions during soccer skills such as running, kicking, jumping, heading and throwing will be useful to the player, coach, trainer and medical staff [2]. This knowledge may be employed in the design of training programmes to enhance the performance of soccer skills, injury prevention, diagnosis, and rehabilitation programmes [3]. (Tracey Howe, 1996) Bio motor abilities are the foundations of ability of an individual to perform an exercisestrength, endurance, speed, coordination, flexibility and agility The contribution of the bio motor abilities to the attainment of high performance is determined by two factors; the ratio between them as a reflection of the specifics of the sport and by the level of development of each ability according to its degree of participation in performing the sport/event [4]. Speed endurance training significantly improves your recovery after a bout of repetitive sprints. Your body's ability to remove lactic acid increases which can make such a difference to your game. Thirdly, a soccer speed training program should improve agility, foot speed and reaction time. Exercises to improve agility don't tend to be physically taxing [5]. The emphasis is on short, sharp movements of a high quality. Strength or muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle group to perform repeated, high-intensity movements. Strength endurance is essential for soccer -and like power, perhaps more essential than all-out strength [6]. At some point in your soccer training routine you should focus on developing strength endurance. Agility is the ability to change direction without the loss of speed, strength, balance, or body control. The performances of athletes who compete today have raised the level of agility. The physical conditioning of athletes has led to a number of changes in teaching, coaching, and training. These changes have allowed for a planned and implemented process that leads to improved performance through greater agility, balance and timing [7]. This new emphasis leads to the evolution of faster, stronger and better conditioned athletes and to elite performances by athletes.

METHODOLOGY
Thirty male soccer players aged between 18 and 26 years from Nirmala College in Ernakulam District, Kerala were selected. They were randomly divided into three groups of ten each, out of which group I (n = 10) consisted of SAQ (speed, agility, quickness) training, group II (n = 10) consisted Plyometric training and group III (n = 10) consisted control group which was not given any training. The dependent variable was agility. Agility was measured by shuttle run. The season of training period was divided into three. The first training season was later pre-season, which consisted of four weeks of training with three days (three sessions) of training and before the training session was a rest day. The second training season was the In-season, which consisted of two weeks with two days (two sessions) of training and before the training session was a rest day. The third training season was in the closed-season, which consisted of two weeks.
The subjects of SAQ group and Plyometric group were made to undergo de-training. Each training session started with light warm-up and ended with cool-down exercises. Each work out session lasted for 60-75 minutes. After the first half of the training five minutes were given as the rest period.      Pre-test was conducted for all the three groups before giving the training and post-test was conducted after 6 weeks of training. The de-training effect was measured after the two weeks of de-training. The statistical technique used was ANCOVA.

ANALYSIS OF DATA AND RESULTS OF THE STUDY
In all conditions the significant level was fixed at 0.05, which was considered to be appropriate since the nature of this study did not demand more stringent level of significance.

Agility
The data collected from pre test, post test and after the detraining test on SAQ training group, Plyometrics training group and the control group have been statistically analyzed and presented in Table 3   Plyometrics group is 0.36942, which was also statistically significant at .05 level of confidence.

Agility (Detraining)
The data collected from pre test, post test and after the detraining test on SAQ training group, Plyometrics training group and the control group have been statistically analyzed and presented in Table 4.  Plyometrics group -0.17049, which was also statistically significant at .05 level of confidence.

DISCUSSION
The results of the study indicate that after the six weeks period of training programme made improvement on agility for SAQ group and plyometrics training group soccer players, where as the SAQ Group have improved the agility significantly, when compared with the plyometrics training group. The results are in line with that of study earlier conducted by (Hespanhol 2006) found that six weeks training programme of SAQ over the changing of explosive strength improves agility [8].
The results of the detraining study indicate that the agility improved better for SAQ group than the Plyometrics group. In this, findings shows that the SAQ training need good recovery and the load before the competition should be medium.

CONCLUSIONS
From the analysis of the data the following conclusions were drawn 1. The comparison of pre and post test score of the SAQ group and plyometrics group in the agility test indicated that there is a significant improvement in the SAQ group than the plyometrics group.
2. The comparison of post and detraining test score of the SAQ group and plyometrics group indicated that the SAQ group improved agility better than the plyometrics group.