COMPARISON OF EFFECT OF BALANCE DISC AND BOSU BALL ON ANKLE DORSIFLEXOR AND PLANTARFLEXOR MUSCLE STRENGTH

Abstract

Purpose of this study is to compare effect of balance disc (duradisk, dynadisk, balance ball, inflatable disc, etc.) and bosu ball on the strength development of ankle dorsiflexor and plantarflexor muscles of sedentary children. 74 sedentary children with a mean age of 9.71 years (sd =0,370) were granted permission from their parents in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. In the study, a balance disk group and a bosu group were formed by random sampling. Balance disk group with the balance disk to the bosu group with bosu balls, three days a week, the same training program was applied for 8 weeks. The pre and post test ankle strength measurements of all groups were measured using the ’Lafayette’ digital hand dynamometer and the differences between the groups were examined. The participants were asked to perform a right-left foot dorsiflexion, and right-left foot plantarflexion force measurements were performed for 5 seconds. Each measurement is repeated twice and the best result was recorded. Two-way analysis of variance was used for parametric results and Kruskall Wallis test for non-parametric results. Before the study, it was seen that there was no significant difference between the groups in the measurements (p>.05). Therefore, gender difference is not considered. After the research, both groups showed improvement according to the pre-tests. There was a significant difference between the balance disk group and the bosu group in favor of the balance disk group (p <.05). In our study, it was found that the training performed with balance disk and bosu ball significantly improved the strength of both ankle dorsiflexor muscle groups and ankle plantarflexor muscle groups. This result shows that the exercises with balance disc and bosu can increase the strength development of dorsiflexor and plantarflexor muscle groups in sedentary children. Therefore, it may be suggested that training with balance disc and bosu can be used as an alternative method for strength development for these muscle groups. Article visualizations: