Investigation of the acute effect of myofascial release techniques and dynamic stretch on vertical jump performance in recreationally active individuals

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate and compare the acute effect of instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization, foam roller, and dynamic stretchinterventions on vertical jump performancein recreationally active individuals.The study included 42 individuals between18 and 35 years of age. All participants were randomized into groups of 14, and they warmed up by5-minjogging. Instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization was applied with Graston Technique®,and foam roller was applied with a Trigger Point Deep Tissue foam roller. On both legs, the hamstring, and gastrocnemius muscles, and plantar fascia were treated with instruments in the Graston Technique® group and with myofascial release using the participant’s own body weight in the foam roller group for a total of 16 min. The dynamic stretch protocol consisted of 10 dynamic exercises with 10 min of medium and high intensity exercising. Vertical jump performance was evaluated before and immediately after the application using the“Optojump Next” system with the“Countermovement Jump without Arm Swing” test. IBM SPSS (version 22) was used for statistical analysis. The p<0.05 value was considered statistically significant.The mean age of the participants was 23.0±1.6, 22.7±3.8, and 21.5±1.6 years in the Graston Technique®, foam roller, and dynamic stretch groups, respectively. There was a statistically significant difference in the pre-and post-jump performance values of all 3 groups (p = 0.000). In the evaluation between the groups, there was no statistically significant difference in the jump performance ofGraston Technique® and dynamic stretch (p = 0.840), dynamic stretch and foam roller (p = 0.778), and Graston Technique® and foam roller (p = 0.436) groups.There was a statistically significant increase in the jump performance of all 3 groups, with the biggest change being in the Graston Technique® group. Considering the inter-group comparisons, no statistically significant change was observed between the groups.