Apport de la musculation en sport collectifamateur : exemple du handball féminin

Introduction. — The aim of the study was to verify, in a non-professional handball female, if theintroduction of two short workouts per week during all season has a positive impact on muscularperformance.Methods. — Eighteen female playing handball at the top Belgian level were monitored duringthe complete season. Ten of these girls (‘‘Muscu’’ group) achieved, in addition to their usualtraining, two short (30 minutes) strength training sessions weekly. The other (‘‘Control’’ group)followed the usual training, without any strength training session. A battery of tests (leg power,arm power, vertical jump, sprint, throwing, flexibility) has been set up to four times during theseason to follow up muscular performance.Results. — According to the literature, the ‘‘Control’’ group showed any change in performanceduring the year. By contrast, ‘‘Muscu group results demonstrated that the short strength trai-ning program was efficient, with significant improvements in leg power (P < 0.005) and sprint(P < 0.05) tests. Increase in vertical jump was very close to the level of significance (P = 0.06).Arms power did not improve but appeared to be superior in the ‘‘Muscu’’ group in comparisonwith ‘‘Control’’ at the end of the season, which was not the case at the beginning.© 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.