Resistance training and its improvement on passive and active range of motion and performance within young adult female jazz dancers: a literature review and intervention study

Resistance training programmes within dance have been thoroughly researched in the genres of ballet, contemporary and modern dance. There is a gap in the research on the style of jazz dance which inspired the current literature review and intervention study. The literature review investigated whether strength, range of motion, and performance improved using resistance training programmes for a dance research population. The intervention study identified and evaluated strength, range of motion and performance improvement using a six-week pre- and post-testing resistance training intervention on a small young adult female jazz dance population. The literature review used four databases: Google Scholar, SportDiscus, PubMed and Medline. MeSH search words included ‘“range of motion”’, ‘hip flexion’, ‘performance’, ‘resistance training’, ‘strength training’, ‘flexibility’, ‘dance*’, ‘ballet’, ‘jazz’, ‘modern dance’, ‘active’, ‘passive’. Inclusion criteria were studies published in the English language; dated between the earliest date found 1990 and the current year 2024. The study participants were either in full-time training at pre-professional dance schools or university courses, or professional dancers aged between 16-35 years; research also needed to have more than 10 participants from any dance genre or aesthetic sports such as gymnastics. Exclusion criteria consisted of non-dance or non-aesthetic sports participants; any of the words range of motion, flexibility, strength, or dance performance were not included within the study as the main dependent variables. Conference proceedings or abstracts were excluded as well as if the research did not include intervention-style testing (pre-post-testing). Fifteen research papers met the inclusion criteria. Each of the included research papers was assessed on methodological quality and reliability using the Kmet Quality Tool Assessment and the papers scored between 14-23 out of 28. An intervention study was carried out and the participants were randomly assigned into an experimental group with twelve participants (age: 21.5 ± 1.55 years, height: 166.32 ± 3.93cm, weight: 57.31 ± 3.88kg) and a control group with ten participants (age: 20.8 ± 1.23 years, height: 166.31 ± 4.46cm, weight: 60.25 ± 8.49kg). The intervention group had to complete the six-week strength training intervention alongside their usual dance training schedule. The current intervention study added the strength, range of motion and performance results into Python 3.12 (64-bit) and found a P value of 0.0001, showing a significant positive effect in strength, active and passive range of motion, and performance within a small young adult female jazz dance population after using a resistance training programme intervention and formed a positive H1 hypothesis which was accepted. Similar limitations of the two papers were the researcher's knowledge, and the narrow scope of the jazz dance style and it was suggested that other genres not regularly tested should be looked into. Overall, the literature review and intervention study findings show that resistance training programmes positively affect a dancer's strength, range of motion and performance.

Citation

Jordan, R. (2025) Resistance training and its improvement on passive and active range of motion and performance within young adult female jazz dancers: a literature review and intervention study. University of Wolverhampton. https://wlv.openrepository.com/handle/2436/625963

Publisher

University of Wolverhampton

URI

https://wlv.openrepository.com/handle/2436/625963

Type

Thesis or dissertation

Language

en

Description

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Masters of Philosophy in Sports and Recreation.

Collections

Theses and Dissertations