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Abstract

Stretching is an integral part of warm-up activity in sports to enhance athlete's performance. The main purpose of the study was to compare the effects of different dynamic stretching duration on speed and agility performance in female gymnasts. A cross-over, repeated-measures design was conducted with participants performed five experimental protocols in a random order. The stretching protocols consisted of four different stretching exercises designed to stretch knee extensors, knee flexors, hip extensors, and plantar flexors. All stretches were performed by both legs in an alternate fashion. Participants assessed on Sprint run 20 m and Agility Performance. Significant interaction effect between protocols and time was found for 20 m sprint and agility performance. Further, statistically significant main effect was found for time for the aforementioned variables. The post hoc comparisons revealed significant differences between pre and post measurement on 20m sprint for dynamic stretching 20 and 30 sec; and 20 up to 40sec for agility performance. Overall, the results revealed that dynamic stretching provide significant benefits for improvement explosive performance skills such as 20 m sprint run and agility performance