The Effects of Natural Grass Turf on Some Motoric Characteristics of Young Soccer Players

Atakan Caglayan

doi:10.11114/jets.v7i1.3771

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of soccer training on natural turfs on strength, speed, power and balance characteristics in prepubertal children. Twenty-two male athletes chosen from the 12-13 age group who play soccer in the youth team of an amateur soccer club from Istanbul, Turkey volunteered to participate in our study. In the study, 30 m sprint, Y-balance, standing long jump and vertical jump tests were done as pre- and post-tests. The same training program was assigned to the players, who were separated into two groups. One group was trained on synthetic grass turf (SG) while the other group was trained on natural grass turf (NG) for eight weeks. As a result of the statistical analyses, significant improvements were observed in all parameters between pre-and post-test measurements of both SG and NG groups (p<0.05). When the developmental differences of the groups were examined, statistical improvement was found in the standing long jump parameter in favor of the group that trained on Natural Grass turf (p=0.037). In conclusion, depending on the characteristics of the soccer game, enhancements were observed on both surfaces. However, the challenge effect of natural grass turf was more effective than that of synthetic grass turf on leg strength improvement. It is considered that as a result of continuing their soccer trainings on natural grass turfs, young players can improve their performance and can avoid possible injuries.

Highlights

Soccer, which is the most popular sports branch in Turkey and the world is a game that requires a high degree of effort and sporting performance and the participants are exposed to actions that have characteristics such as strength, speed, agility, balance, flexibility and sufficient endurance (Helgerud et al, 2001, Bloomfield et al, 2007)
Y-balance, 30m sprint, standing long jump and vertical jump tests were done in that order as pretesting and the same training program was assigned to the players, who were separated into two groups, one group (SG) was trained on synthetic grass turf for eight weeks, while the other group (NG) was trained on natural grass turf for eight weeks
While soccer trainings and competitions are done on natural grass in high level leagues, synthetic grass turfs are often used in non-elite leagues, amateur levels and especially in youth team competitions

Summary

Introduction

Soccer, which is the most popular sports branch in Turkey and the world is a game that requires a high degree of effort and sporting performance and the participants are exposed to actions that have characteristics such as strength, speed, agility, balance, flexibility and sufficient endurance (Helgerud et al, 2001, Bloomfield et al, 2007).In literature there are numerous training programs aiming at improving sporting performance and these training models improving sporting performance usually consider strength, power and speed exercises (Marques and Gonzales-Bodillo 2006, Kirby et al, 2010). Soccer, which is the most popular sports branch in Turkey and the world is a game that requires a high degree of effort and sporting performance and the participants are exposed to actions that have characteristics such as strength, speed, agility, balance, flexibility and sufficient endurance (Helgerud et al, 2001, Bloomfield et al, 2007). Even though jumping, sprinting and agility are versatile abilities, few publications include the importance of balance, posture or landing mechanisms (Lloyd et al, 2011). In soccer a good balance is a sign of high performance and it plays a significant role in the movements of the soccer player during the game. Strength is defined as the maximum resistance that the muscle demonstrates during a slowly performed movement (Wong et al, 2010) and can improve important abilities in soccer such as speed, cutting and speed change (Stolen et al, 2005)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion