Plyometric Training Based on Motor Imagery and Action Observation in Female Volleyball Players

Plyometric training (PT) is training consisting of exercises that enable the muscles to reach maximum strength in minimum time. PE improves lower extremity muscle strength, jumping performance, agility, reaction time. Although plyometric exercises contribute greatly to increasing athlete performance, athletes cannot apply PE due to loading procedures at all times of the season. PEs in the literature generally involve active application of exercises. The definition of exercise includes not only physical exercise but also mental exercise. Athletes can use mental exercises as complementary training methods that can complement or add to physical training to compensate for their deficiencies. When mental exercises are examined, we often encounter two concepts. These are action observation (AO) and motor imagery (MI). MI imagines a task without actually performing it. AO is when a person watches a certain action being performed by another third party or while the video is being played back. There are studies showing that training on MI and AO methods creates more activation in the brain when applied together. Although the definition of motor imagery has been broadly separated from action, more recent imagery theories have led to the concept of dynamic motor imagery (DMI), the practice of athletes adopting a harmonious body position and embodying the spatial and temporal properties of movement without performing the entire movement. To the best of our knowledge, no study has been found in which PT based on MI and AO was performed on female volleyball players. Additionally, to our knowledge, the effectiveness of DMI on female volleyball players has not been investigated. Therefore, the aim of our study is; PT based on MI and AO is applied to female volleyball players in two different ways; The aim is to investigate the effects of balance, jumping, agility and reaction time and to compare the effectiveness of these two methods.