Acute impact of Nordic hamstring exercise on sprint performance after 24, 48 and 72 hours

Abstract

The Nordic Hamstring Exercise (NHE) improves the strength of the hamstring muscles, as well as prevents and rehabilitates the injuries of said muscles. However, the eccentric demand of NHE may influence the athlete’s performance, making compliance with these programmes difficult. The aim is to analyse the acute impact on sprint performance after the passing of 24, 48, and 72 hours respectively since an NHE-based session (4 sets of 10 repetitions) had taken place. Participants were randomly divided into an experimental group (EG) (n = 12 male participants) who carried out an NHE session and a measurement of their 30 m sprint performance in each of the three subsequent days, and a control group (CG) (n = 12 male participants) who did not take part in the NHE session. The results show a significant reduction of maximum power within 24 hours (t = 3.57, d = 0.22, P < .0273) as well of the production of high speed horizontal force up to after 48 hours (t = 4.82, d = 0.22, P < .0001) in the EG. These results may suggest separating weekly NHE sessions from competition or demanding training in which sprint performance should not be affected by at least 72 hours.