Bilateral practice improves dominant leg performance in long jump

Abstract

Benefits of bilateral practice both for the non-dominant and for the dominant body side have been shown in several studies. Thereby, most of the studies included movement tasks of the upper extremity or investigated sports games in which the ability of acting bilaterally is an essential basis for success and, thus, a bilateral practice is reasonable anyway. Individual unilaterally performed sports including movement tasks of the lower extremity are rarely investigated. Therefore, the aim of our study was to test if contralateral transfer due to bilateral practice can be found in an unilaterally performed sport including the lower extremity. We trained and tested 61 adolescent athletes in long jump to compare the jumping performance of the dominant leg after a 12-week practice period between two groups: a bilateral practice group that practiced specific long jump exercises with both the dominant and non-dominant leg and an unilateral practice group that practiced specific long jump exercises only with the dominant leg. Results showed a superior effect of bilateral practice compared to unilateral practice regarding the jumping performance of the dominant leg. The performance increase at post-test and retention-test for the dominant limb was significantly higher for the bilateral practice group (pre-to-post: 5.2%, pre-to-retention: 7.4%) compared to the unilateral practice group (pre-to-post: 3.4%, pre-to-retention: 4.5%). Thus, bilateral practice should be established in the early practice programmes of track and field athletes to improve the performance of the dominant take-off leg.

Consecutive learning of opposing unimanual motor tasks using the right arm followed by the left arm causes intermanual interference

“…In particular, interlimb transfer (or interlimb generalization, cross-limb transfer, cross-education) refers to the generalization of motor memory from one limb to another. Existence of such interlimb transfer is well-known and corresponding investigations are relevant from a theoretical perspective–e.g., to investigate interhemispheric connectivity [1,2] or models of internal task representation [3]–but also for practical reasons like the design of effective interventions in rehabilitation or sports in terms of bilateral practice schedules [4–6]. …”

Using Modified Equipment in Field Hockey Leads to Positive Transfer of Learning Effect

“…We test this hypothesis in a complex sport task analogous to those that having been used to study cross education in basketball, soccer and the long jump (see Stöckel et al, 2011 ; Stöckel and Weigelt, 2012 ; Focke et al, 2016 ), but with a more apparent coordination between the limbs. Consequently, we used field hockey, in which players use both hands to handle the stick.…”

The effect of football basic technical training using unilateral leg on bilateral leg transfer in male children

“…Using the dominant and nondominant (recessive) feet has important advantages for the players while playing football. Therefore, the importance of bilateral and unilateral skill trainings for lower extremities in football has increased, and players' using both of their feet well has become necessary for them [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] .…”

“…The fact that initial practice of a motor task with one body side leads to subsequent performance with the other body side was shown in many studies that investigated upper limb [11][12][13] and lower limb movements 1,14 . However, only a few studies investigated bilateral practice of sports skills for the lower extremities or included experienced athletes especially in team sports, and the few studies that were found indicate inconsistent results 15,16 .…”