Influence of Box Height on Inter-Limb Asymmetry and Box Jump Performance

• Published in: Symmetry (Basel) Vol. 15; no. 7; p. 1359
• Main Authors: dos Santos, Marcel Lopes, Berton, Ricardo, Shields, JoCarol, Bishop, Chris, Dinyer-McNeely, Taylor, Anderson, Olivia, Dawes, Jay
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-07-2023
• Subjects: Asymmetry; Body composition; Boxes; Coefficient of variation; Correlation coefficients; countermovement jump; Females; jump training; plyometric training; power; symmetry; Training; Warm up (exercise); United States > US; Germany
• ISSN: 2073-8994; 2073-8994
• DOI: 10.3390/sym15071359

Box jumps are often included in training programs as an introductory exercise to novice athletes and untrained individuals and are an efficient option of lower-body explosiveness training. However, it is unclear whether the use of boxes of differing heights affect the inter-limb asymmetry during this exercise. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of box height in inter-limb asymmetry during box jumps. Recreationally active young males (n = 14) and females (n = 16) performed three jumps at boxes that corresponded to approximately 0, 20, 40, 60, and 80% of their individual countermovement jumps. The selected performance variables were peak force (PF), peak power (PP), rate of force development (RFD), and time to take-off (TToff). The intraclass correlation coefficients ranged from 0.76 to 0.99, and the coefficient of variation ranged from 4.03 to 16.52%. A series of one-way repeated measures ANOVA tests were used to test for significant differences of the performance variables and inter-limb asymmetries. The females’ PF at 80% was significantly higher from 0% (p < 0.05). No significant differences were observed for inter-limb asymmetry across box heights (p ≥ 0.25). This study shows that the box height does not affect the overall intra-session inter-limb asymmetries in recreationally active individuals.