Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence: roland. Background: The ability to rapidly change direction while sprinting is a desirable athletic skill in soccer. Enhancing change of direction COD performance depends almost exclusively on specific training, with stretching traditionally considered one such intervention.
However, the comparative impact of diverse stretching methods on COD in soccer players remains an area of interest. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the effects of different stretching methods on COD ability in soccer players. Methods: Twelve male soccer players playing in the national championship football division II age: The duration of stretching intervention was approximately 6 min for static and dynamic stretching and 12 min for both the combined stretching conditions.
The experimental sessions were separated by 72 h. Results: COD improved after dynamic stretching when compared to any other condition p : 0. Conclusion: Dynamic stretching exercises used by male soccer players in the warm-up improved COD. Other forms of stretching exercises, particularly static stretching, negatively impacted the COD performance. Moreover, extending the investigation to encompass a wider range of athletes, including different age groups and genders, would enhance the applicability and generalization of the findings.
Keywords: strength and conditioning, directional training, dynamic stretching, flexibility. Football is a highly demanding sport, wherein players are subjected to a multitude of activities requiring substantial aerobic capacity and intermittent non-continuous exercises, which include repeated sprinting ability, agility, jumping, COD, and flexibility [ 1 , 2 ]. The speed and agility training method refers to a training approach based on movement tasks performed with a high rate in a short time quickness combined with straight speed and COD over a variety of distances, with and without cognitive stimuli agility [ 2 ].
Several authors have shown the positive effects of speed, agility, and quickness training on agility and soccer-related performance in young adults, adolescents, and preadolescents soccer players [ 3 ]. During a game, soccer players accomplish around direction changes of varying intensity. In addition, COD ability was considered the most important performance variable for predicting soccer player selection [ 10 ], distinguishing between elite and sub-elite soccer players [ 11 ] and predicting on-field performance [ 12 , 13 ].
