Samad Safarzadeh Gargari, Tohid Aziz Zadeh, Sina Esmali and Ladan Zoodfekr
Karate is one of the most popular sport in the world which has a lot of fans, to achieve its training goals karate require special physical features such as flexibility, strength, power, agility and Explosive power of arms and legs. This study attempts to investigate the impact of polyometric exercise in helping the athletic performance of karate players. The investigations suggest that the polyometric exercises cause the improvement of sports performance and it recently has been used widely for the rehabilitation of injured athletes [13]. Polyometric exercise is one of the latest methods of training used to increase explosive power, speed and vertical jump in sports. Polyometric exercises are in fact related to the process of stretching and shortening of the muscle [22]. A muscle that is pulled can exert more power than the muscle which is not pulled. Short-binding contraction that takes place immediately after a lengthening contraction utilizes the energy of flexibility that is stored during pulling. The use of this flexibility energy, in turn, generates more power within a shorter time period which causes an increase in explosive power of the muscle [24]. Polyometric exercises is a proper method, on the one hand, that can enable educators to increase the players' explosive power of the muscles in situ vertical jumping, reaction and agility and so on, and on the other hand they can decrease players damages that may happen during practice or competition.
