Article Title
Comparison between Leg Power Output of High School and Collegiate Female Cheerleaders
Abstract
This study aims to compare the leg power output between high school and collegiate level cheerleaders to determine whether any similarities or differences exist. 60 female participants, divided equally with 30 participants each for the high school group (mean, SD: Age = 16.17 years, 3.11) and college group (mean, SD: Age = 19.47 years, 1.45), completed a 1-day testing wherein a standardized warm-up was implemented and leg power output was measured using the ChronoJump software via 2 trials of countermovement jumps. Results from the data collected for leg power output are, for high school cheerleaders (mean, SD: Power = 602.17 watts, 111.35) and for college cheerleaders (mean, SD: Power = 478.71 watts, 92.22). Comparison of leg power output was computed via t-test, with (t(56.05) = -4.67, p = 0.00) and the calculated effect size d = 1.24, indicating that there is a significant difference between the leg power output of high school and college level cheerleaders. The researchers have come up with three possible explanations for this outcome: 1) the high school group had a training program which was able to specifically emphasize leg power development, 2) there were differences in fitness levels due to the roles of the participants – Team A versus Team B, and 3) there were differences in years of experience in cheerleading. This study reveals that there is lots of potential for further studies in this area, in line with this, the results of the present study can be used as a baseline for future studies.