EFFECT OF SELECTED PHYSICAL EXERCISES ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF SPEED AND AGILITY OF MALE FOOTBALL PLAYERS: THE CASE OF BOKOLMANYO SECONDARY AND PREPARATORY SCHOOL STUDENTS, LIBEN ZONE, ETHIOPIAN SOMALI REGIONAL STATE

Abstract

Speed and agility are two related, determinant and very important variables of football Sport. The study was designed to investigate the effect of selected physical exercises on the improvement of speed and agility performance of bokolmanyo secondary and preparatory school male football players. The Purposive-random sampling technique was used in the study subject selection and 60 male football players of bokolmanyo secondary and preparatory school sport team students with the age ranging 19- 21yearsold were involved in the study. These 60 male students were assigned into two groups as experimental and control groups, and the selected physical exercise programs were given to the experimental groups for twelve weeks (3months), three days per week and 60 minutes (1 hour) exercise session per day but the control groups were kept only for comparison method. The pre, during and post training tests was conducted on 35m speed run test and agility T-test fitness variables from both experimental and control groups and the relevant data was collected. Then, the collected data was analyzed by paired sample t-test to determine the mean differences value between pre and post training test results, to make comparison in between experimental and control group mean value results. According to the finding 35m speed run test (0.80seconds) and agility T-test (2.01seconds) pre-post mean differences value were recorded in the experimental groups but nothing was changed in the control groups. These results indicate that, there were significant improvements in speed and agility performance in experimental groups while no significant changes were showed in control groups but they were kept only for the results comparison. It was concluded that selected physical exercises have a significant, positive effect on the improvement of speed and agility performance of experimental group male school football players, who was participated in the twelve weeks (3months) physical exercise programs effectively.