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Plyometrics are exercises that involved the enhancement of muscle performance. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of 6-weeks plyometric training on speed and agility performance among recreational football players. This study was conducted following the pre-post test model of quasi-experimental method. Twenty-two recreational football players were chosen for this study (aged between 19 to 26 years old) and randomly assigned into control (N=11) and intervention group (N=11) for six weeks. Subjects in the control group did not undergo any plyometric training. In contrast, the intervention group performed plyometric training for six weeks. All subjects participated in two tests; 1) Sprint test of 20 m distance for speed performance and; 2) Agility test using Agility T-test for agility performance before (pre) and after (post) training. For the intervention group, significant improvement in the difference of sprint time before and after six weeks of training were discovered (t = 3.76, p = 0.001) when compared to the control group. The agility performance of the intervention group also showed a significant difference when compared to the control group (t = 2.53, p = 0.01). Therefore, this will help players to improve their performance during a football match and prevent injury among recreational football players.

Statistical tests have been widely used for several decades to identify and test the significance of trends in runoff and other hydrological data. The Mann-Kendall (M-K) trend test is commonly used in trend analysis. The M-K test was originally proposed for random data. Several variations of the M-K test, as well as pre-processing of data for use with it, have been developed and used. The M-K test under the scaling hypothesis has been developed recently. The basic objective of the research presented in this paper is to investigate the trends in Malaysian monthly runoff data. Identification of trends in runoff data is useful for planning water resources projects. Existence of statistically significant trends would also lead to identification of possible effects of climate change. Monthly runoff data for Malaysian rivers from the past three decades are analysed, in both five-year segments and entire data sequences. The five-year segments are analysed to investigate the variability in trends from one segment to another in three steps: (1) the M-K tests are conducted under random and correlation assumptions; (2) the Hurst scaling parameter is estimated and tested for significance; and (3) the M-K test under the scaling hypothesis is conducted. Thus the tests cover both correlation and scaling. The results show that the number of significant segments in Malaysian runoff data would be the same as those found under the assumption that the river flow sequences are random. The results are also the same for entire sequences. Thus, monthly Malaysian runoff data do not have statistically significant trends. Hence there are no indications of climate change in Malaysian runoff data.

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The purpose of this study was to assess the level of gross motor development among children based on ethnic differences. A total of 49 subjects aged between 8 to 9 years old were volunteered involve in this study (age, 8.55 ± .50 years old). There are two Malaysian ethnic involved in this study namely Malay (n = 28) and Indian (n = 21). All of the subjects are among students in one of the primary schools in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. The subjects’ level of gross motor development was assessed using the Test of Gross Motor Development version 2 (TGMD-2). The instrument was used to examine two important aspects of gross motor that are locomotor and object manipulation. The locomotor component skills consist of running, galloping, hopping, leaping, jumping and sliding. While the object manipulation component consists of striking, dribbling, catching, kicking, throwing and rolling. The findings showed that there were no differences observed on level of gross motor development between Malay and Indian in locomotor [t (46) = .524, p (.60)> .05] and object manipulation [t (44.09) = -1.45, p (.19)> .05]. The Gross Motor Quotient (GMQ) score showed by Malay (min = 87.46) and Indian (min = 81.00) are below average of level of gross motor development. In conclusion, the gross motor performance among children is lower compared to their actual age. While ethnic factors are not strong indicator to determine children’s gross motor development in Malaysia.