Effects of wearable resistance during warm-up on physical fitness measures in young female athletes

The aim of this study was to quantify the training effects of wearing calf-loaded wearable resistance (WR) during a netball specific warm-up in female netball athletes. Twenty-nine high school female netball athletes were matched for change of direction (COD) speed and randomly allocated to either WR training or an unloaded group. Both groups performed the same warm-up two times per week for 6 weeks, with the WR group wearing 1%–1.5% body mass loads on each calf. Pre- and post-training data were collected for 5- and 15-m sprint times, modified 5-0-5 COD splits and total time and single-leg horizontal, lateral and countermovement (CMJ) jump performance. Both groups significantly decreased their 5 m linear sprint times (WRT = −4.41%, effect size [ES] = −1.60; control [CON] = −2.60%, ES = −0.71), while only the WRT significantly decreased their 15 m time (−2.14%, ES = −1.55). There were no significant decreases in 5-0-5 total time for either group, however the WRT group significantly decreased their acceleration (−7.40%, ES = −0.60) and COD split (−9.73%, ES = −1.02). Both groups increased their lateral jump (WRT: 4.60%–6.62%, ES = 0.67–0.96; CON: 5.48%–6.06%, ES = 0.73–0.75), while only the WRT group increased (p < 0.05) their horizontal jump (3.57%–4.18%, ES = 0.57–0.67). Given the results, it appears that calf-loaded WR may be an effective method for improving linear speed, aspects of the modified 5-0-5 test and horizontal jump ability in female netball athletes.