European Journal of Sport Science

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Bilateral practice improves dominant leg

performance in long jump

Anne Focke, Sina Spancken, Christian Stockinger, Benjamin Thürer &

Thorsten Stein

To cite this article: Anne Focke, Sina Spancken, Christian Stockinger, Benjamin Thürer &
Thorsten Stein (2016): Bilateral practice improves dominant leg performance in long jump,
European Journal of Sport Science, DOI: 10.1080/17461391.2016.1141996

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2016.1141996

Published online: 10 Feb 2016.

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 European Journal of Sport Science, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2016.1141996

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Bilateral practice improves dominant leg performance in long jump

ANNE FOCKE, SINA SPANCKEN, CHRISTIAN STOCKINGER, BENJAMIN THÜRER, &

THORSTEN STEIN

BioMotion Center, Institute of Sports and Sports Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

Abstract
Benefits of bilateral practice both for the non-dominant and for the dominant body side have been shown in several studies.
Downloaded by [University of Coruna] at 03:35 02 March 2016

Thereby, most of the studies included movement tasks of the upper extremity or investigated sports games in which the ability
of acting bilaterally is an essential basis for success and, thus, a bilateral practice is reasonable anyway. Individual unilaterally
performed sports including movement tasks of the lower extremity are rarely investigated. Therefore, the aim of our study was
to test if contralateral transfer due to bilateral practice can be found in an unilaterally performed sport including the lower
extremity. We trained and tested 61 adolescent athletes in long jump to compare the jumping performance of the
dominant leg after a 12-week practice period between two groups: a bilateral practice group that practiced specific long
jump exercises with both the dominant and non-dominant leg and an unilateral practice group that practiced specific long
jump exercises only with the dominant leg. Results showed a superior effect of bilateral practice compared to unilateral
practice regarding the jumping performance of the dominant leg. The performance increase at post-test and retention-test
for the dominant limb was significantly higher for the bilateral practice group (pre-to-post: 5.2%, pre-to-retention: 7.4%)
compared to the unilateral practice group (pre-to-post: 3.4%, pre-to-retention: 4.5%). Thus, bilateral practice should be
established in the early practice programmes of track and field athletes to improve the performance of the dominant take-
off leg.

Keywords: Bilateral transfer; lower extremity; contralateral transfer; crosslimb education; bilateral training

Introduction
Humans show a more or less pronounced motor-
functional laterality that is reflected in a preferred
body side (dominant side). Additionally, humans
exhibit most often a better performance with the
dominant side compared to the non-dominant side.
Acquisition and optimisation of motor skills is there-
fore mostly performed with that dominant side.
However, a situation-specific action not only with
the dominant but also with the non-dominant side
of the body is crucial for many sports games like bas-
ketball, football, handball, or volleyball (Grouis,
Kiodou, Tsorbatzoudis, & Alexandris, 2004). A
player’s ability of acting bilaterally is an essential con-
dition to be successful under time or opponent
pressure (Stöckel, Weigelt, & Krug, 2011). Thus,
an early practice of the non-dominant body side is
beneficial to improve the performance of this non-
dominant side (Haaland & Hoff, 2003; Teixeira,
Silva, & Carvalho, 2003), and therefore produces
an advantage for the player’s ability of situation-
specific actions. Interestingly, bilateral practice can
also be beneficial for skills or sports that are per-
formed unilaterally like throwing (basketball, hand-
ball) or table tennis. Here bilateral practice seems to
be beneficial not only for the non-dominant but
also for the dominant side (Maurer, 2005; Stöckel
& Weigelt, 2012). This is based on a positive learning
transfer between matched limbs, and is called con-
tralateral transfer (Magill, 2007).
The fact that initial practice of a motor task with
one body side leads to an improvement in subsequent
performance with the other body side was shown in
many studies that investigated upper limb move-
ments in the laboratory (Bagesteiro & Sainburg,
2002, 2003; Criscimagna-Hemminger, Donchin,
Gazzaniga, & Shadmehr, 2003; Sainburg & Wang,
2002; Senff & Weigelt, 2011; Wang & Sainburg,

Correspondence: Anne Focke, BioMotion Center, Institute of Sports and Sports Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Engler-Bunte-
Ring 15, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany. E-mail: anne.focke@kit.edu

© 2016 European College of Sport Science

 2 A. Focke et al.
2004a, 2004b, 2006, 2007). In addition to the studies
that included movement tasks of the upper extremity,
Stöckel and Wang (2011) also investigated contralat-
eral transfer of the lower limbs. They concluded that
the idea of contralateral transfer applies to both upper
and lower extremity. Even though, most of these lab-
oratory studies were conducted to investigate the
magnitude and direction of transfer to understand
the underlying neural mechanisms that are respon-
sible for such a learning transfer, the results are very
conflicting and thus the mechanisms are still not suf-
ficiently understood (Ruddy & Carson, 2013 for a
review).
Irrespective of the magnitude, the direction or the
underlying mechanisms of contralateral transfer,
such a positive learning transfer might have a great
practical relevance for planning practice schedules
in different sports. However, only a few studies inves-
tigated this phenomenon in applied settings. Similar
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to the laboratory studies, most applied studies
included movement tasks of the upper limbs (e.g.
Maurer, 2005) and focused on specific questions
like sequential effects of bilateral practice (Stöckel
et al., 2011; Stöckel & Weigelt, 2012). In these
studies, only subjects who had no prior experience
with the task were included. Besides the fact that,
similar to the laboratory studies, the magnitude and
direction of transfer was different for different move-
ment tasks, all studies showed positive learning
effects with a bilateral practice for both the dominant
and non-dominant side.
In contrast, only a few studies investigated bilateral
practice of sports skills for the lower extremities or
included experienced athletes, and the few studies
that were found indicate inconsistent results. Teix-
eira et al. (2003) investigated skilled adolescents in
soccer tasks after a four-month practice period. In
one of three tasks (dribbling) the group that practiced
with both the preferred and non-preferred limb
showed a superior performance with the non-
preferred limb and a similar performance with the
preferred limb compared to the control group.
Thus, the bilateral practice group showed a similar
performance of the dominant leg, even with
reduced dominant leg training. In combination with
the higher performance of the non-dominant leg, a
bilateral practice leads to a reduction of lateral asym-
metries. Haaland and Hoff (2003) found for competi-
tive soccer players that the group that practiced an
individual technical training eight weeks only with
the non-dominant leg improved their soccer perform-
ance significantly as compared to the control group
for both the non-dominant and dominant leg.
Thus, a positive learning transfer to the dominant
leg was found in the bilateral practice group.
While studies, that included movement tasks with
the upper extremity, investigated both sports games
(e.g. basketball) and sports that are performed unilat-
erally (e.g. table tennis), studies that included move-
ment tasks of the lower extremity only investigated
sports games in which the ability of acting bilaterally
is an essential condition to be successful and thus a
bilateral practice is reasonable anyway. We found
no study that investigated the effect of bilateral prac-
tice in unilaterally performed sports including the
lower limbs.
Therefore, the aim of our study was to test if con-
tralateral transfer due to bilateral practice can be
found in an unilaterally performed sport including
the lower extremity – using the example of long
jump – for subjects with previous experience in the
movement task. As the drop, a performance-deter-
mining factor in long jump, is an unilaterally per-
formed motor action we only investigated the
transfer from the non-dominant to the dominant leg
and compared a commonly used unilateral jumping
practice with a bilateral jumping practice to find out
if one method outmatches the other.
Methods
Subjects
The sample included 31 girls and 30 boys aged
between 6.75 and 13.50 years (mean ± SD: 9.66 ±
1.95 years). Subjects were recruited from the athletic
sports section of a local sports club. All subjects had
at least one year experience in practicing athletics
(mean ± SD: 3.6 ± 1.76 years) and mastered the
main features of the long jump. Starting with 69 sub-
jects, eight subjects dropped out because they either
did not complete enough practice sessions (at least
18 of the 24 sessions, n = 5) or did not complete all
test sessions (n = 3). No subject dropped out because
of injury or pain. The dominant take-off leg in
jumping was determined using an evaluation of the
jumping distance with each leg during the pre-test.
Thereby, the leg yielding the better jumping perform-
ance in the pre-test was defined as dominant leg. By
the time of the study none of the children had experi-
ences in practicing long jump with the non-dominant
leg. Guardian consent to participate in the study was
provided for all children and the test protocol was
approved by the Institutional Review Board.
All subjects were divided into three age groups
(U 10: under 10 years n = 24 , U 12: under 12 years
n = 19, U 14: under 14 years n = 18) and within
each age group subjects were parallelised into two
groups (unilateral, bilateral practice group) according
to their jumping performance with the dominant leg
 Bilateral practice improves dominant leg performance in long jump
Table I. Distribution of the subjects among the groups
Age Practice
U 10 Unilateral
Bilateral
U 12 Unilateral
Bilateral
U 14 Unilateral
Bilateral
Total Unilateral
Bilateral
Note: U 10 = under 10 years, U 12 = under 12 years, U 14 = under 14 years.
in the pre-test. Thus, the jumping performance of the
corresponding two groups was similar. For the prac-
tice within each age group the first group passed the
whole practice period only with the dominant take-
off leg (total n = 31, 16 girls and 15 boys) while the
second group completed a bilateral jumping practice
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(total n = 30, 16 girls and 14 boys) (Table I).
Experimental design and data collection
The investigation extended over a period of 15 weeks
(September to January), whereby the jumping prac-
tice was organised over a 12-week period. Pre-test
was conducted at the beginning of the practice
period and a post-test was conducted at the end of
the 12-week practice period. A retention-test after
another three weeks without practice completed the
data collection.
Each test consisted of six long jumps, three with
each leg. Jumping order between legs was random-
ised within the tests and all children were instructed
to jump as long as possible. Thereby, jumping dis-
tance was determined from take-off of the foot to
exclude effects regarding the ability to exactly hit
the board. For each leg the best jump out of three
was taken for further analysis. Subjects had to com-
plete all three test sessions to be included in the study.
Practice
Practice sessions took place two times a week (24
practice sessions) for 1.5 hours on each day
(Tuesday and Friday) and were conducted in a
sports hall to minimise injury risks caused by bad
weather during the enquiry period. At least, 18 of
24 practice sessions had to be completed for inclusion
into the study. Subjects separately practiced within
each of the three age groups (U 10, U 12, U 14) to
ensure an adequate level of performance within the
practice sessions. Each practice session consisted of
a specific long jump practice combined with exercises
of coordination, stabilisation, and sprinting. Only
3
n Gender
12 Female = 3, male = 9
12 Female = 3, male = 9
10 Female = 7, male = 3
9 Female = 5, male = 4
9 Female = 6, male = 3
9 Female = 8, male = 1
31 Female = 16, male = 15
30 Female = 16, male = 14
new exercises for the specific long jump practice
were used. Each group (unilateral or bilateral) com-
pleted the same practice workload whereas the unilat-
eral group performed all exercises of the specific long
jump practice with their dominant leg and the bilat-
eral group alternated between the dominant and
non-dominant leg in a randomised order. All other
exercises (coordination, stabilisation, sprinting)
were practiced leg independent. To avoid overtrain-
ing, the bilateral practice group did not practice
50% with their non-dominant leg from the beginning
of the training period, even though an equal distri-
bution of dominant and non-dominant long jump
practice was aspired (Figure 1). Within the first six
weeks, only 25% of the practice was performed with
the non-dominant leg. After six weeks, practice with
the non-dominant leg was increased up to 75%
(Figure 1). Thus, on average the amount of practice
for the dominant and non-dominant leg within the
12-week practice period was the same. Additionally,
all training sessions were planned with the child’s ath-
letic coach to guarantee adequate exercises and to
prevent an overtraining of the children. The amount
of exercises and jump variations performed within
one training session did not exceed the amount of
exercises and jumps performed in the training sessions
prior to the study. Specifically, about 10 jump vari-
ations per session were performed with the youngest
subjects and about 15 jump variations per session
were performed with the oldest subjects.
Statistical analysis
All statistical tests were performed using SPSS 19.0.
A multi-factorial ANOVA, 2 (practice group: unilat-
eral vs. bilateral) × 3 (age group: U 10 vs. U 12 vs. U
14) × 3 (time: pre vs. post vs. retention), with
repeated measurements on the last factor time was
conducted for the jumping performance of the domi-
nant leg. To detect differences between the different
test times, post-hoc two-way ANOVAs, 2 (practice
group: unilateral vs. bilateral) × 2 (time: test time a
 4 A. Focke et al.

Figure 1. Experimental design for the unilateral and bilateral practice groups over the training and retention period (T1: pre-test, T2: post-
test, T3: retention-test). DL indicates dominant leg and NDL non-dominant leg.

vs. test time b), with repeated measures on the factor
time were conducted between pre- and post-test as
well as between post- and retention-test. Thereby,
all age groups were analysed together because no sig-
nificant interaction between time and age group was
found in the overall ANOVA. Finally, post-hoc t-
tests were conducted to reveal significant differences
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Table II(b), but no further analyses are presented on
that data in this section. The 2 × 3 × 3 ANOVA for
the dominant leg data revealed a significant time
effect (F2,110 = 156.47, p < .001, h2p = 0.740), a sig-
nificant age group effect (F2,55 = 93.83, p < .001,
h2p = 0.773) and no significant practice group effect
(F1,55 = 0.67, p = .416, h2p = 0.012). All subjects

between test times within each practice group. Effect
sizes were determined using partial eta squared (h2p ).
According to Cohen (1988), large magnitudes of
effects were h2p = 0.14, medium-sized effects were
h2p = 0.06, and small effects were h2p = 0.01 (Richard-
son, 2011). The level of significance for all tests was
set a priori to 0.05. If sphericity was violated Green-
house–Geisser correction was used. When multiple
analyses were conducted (post-hoc 2 × 2 ANOVAs,
post-hoc t-tests), Holm–Bonferroni procedure
(sequentially rejective Bonferroni test; Holm, 1979)
was used to adjust the p-values.
Results
Jumping distances of the dominant leg for all subject
groups and all tests are shown in Table II(a).
Additionally, jumping distances of the non-dominant
leg for both practice groups and all tests are shown in
improved their jumping performance from pre- over
post- to the retention-test and the jumping perform-
ance increased with increasing age. The significant
time × practice group interaction (F2,110 = 10.97,
p < .001, h2p = 0.166) showed a higher increase of
jumping performance for the bilateral (pre-to-post:
5.2%, pre-to-retention: 7.4%) practice group com-
pared to the unilateral practice group (pre-to-post:
3.4%, pre-to-retention: 4.5%). The interaction
between time and age group was not significant
(F4,110 = 1.63, p = .172, h2p = 0.056) indicating a
similar development for all age groups over time.
Thus, for further post-hoc analyses (2 × 2 ANOVAs,
t-tests) no distinction was made between the three
age groups.
The post-hoc 2 × 2 ANOVA between pre- and post-
test showed a significant time effect (F1,59 = 159.56,
p < .001, h2p = 0.730), no significant practice group
effect (F1,59 = 0.08, p = .775, h2p = 0.001), and a sig-
nificant interaction between time and practice

Figure 2. Jumping distance of the dominant leg (mean ± CI95) for all subjects separated for the two practice groups (unilateral and bilateral).
Hash (#) indicates a significant time effect, dagger (†) indicates a significant interaction between time and practice group, asterisk (∗ ) indicates
significant differences between test times within each practice group.
 Bilateral practice improves dominant leg performance in long jump 5
Table II. Jumping distance (m) of the (a) dominant leg and (b) non-dominant leg (mean, CI95, and difference between test times) for all three
age groups and both practice groups (unilateral and bilateral)

Pre-test Post-test Retention-test

Δ post/
Mean CI95 Mean CI95 Δ pre/post Mean CI95 retention

(a) Dominant
Age Practice n
U 10 Unilateral 12 2.22 0.20 2.29 0.20 0.08 2.32 0.19 0.02
Bilateral 12 2.23 0.18 2.36 0.22 0.13 2.39 0.20 0.04
U 12 Unilateral 10 2.59 0.16 2.69 0.14 0.10 2.74 0.15 0.05
Bilateral 9 2.61 0.14 2.77 0.16 0.15 2.85 0.15 0.08
U 14 Unilateral 9 3.41 0.16 3.50 0.15 0.09 3.53 0.18 0.02
Bilateral 9 3.42 0.14 3.56 0.15 0.14 3.65 0.15 0.09
Total Unilateral 31 2.68 0.20 2.77 0.20 0.09∗ 2.80 0.20 0.03∗
#† #†
Bilateral 30 2.70 0.20 2.84 0.21 0.14∗ 2.90 0.21 0.06∗
(b) Non-dominant
Age Practice n
U 10 Unilateral 12 2.00 0.19 2.10 0.18 0.10 2.14 0.19 0.04
Bilateral 12 2.03 0.24 2.21 0.26 0.18 2.26 0.26 0.05
U 12 Unilateral 10 2.49 0.23 2.59 0.15 0.10 2.64 0.15 0.05
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Bilateral 9 2.50 0.23 2.70 0.20 0.20 2.75 0.19 0.05

U 14 Unilateral 9 3.07 0.20 3.24 0.16 0.18 3.31 0.17 0.07
Bilateral 9 3.09 0.16 3.39 0.10 0.31 3.46 0.11 0.07
Total Unilateral 31 2.47 0.19 2.59 0.19 0.12∗ 2.64 0.20 0.05∗
#† #
Bilateral 30 2.49 0.20 2.71 0.21 0.22∗ 2.77 0.22 0.06∗

Note: U 10 = under 10 years, U 12 = under 12 years, U 14 = under 14 years. Results of post-hoc 2 × 2 ANOVAs for pooled age groups (Total):
hash (#) indicates a significant time effect; dagger (†) indicates a significant interaction between time and practice group. Results of the post-
hoc t-tests: asterisk (∗ ) indicates significant differences between pre- and post-test and between post- and retention-test.

group (F1,59 = 8.87, p = .008, h2p = 0.131). Similar
results were found for the 2 × 2 ANOVA between
post- and retention-test (time: F1,59 = 41.94,
p < .001, h2p = 0.415, practice group: F1,59 = 0.33,
p > .999, h2p = 0.005, time × practice group: F1,59 =
4.51, p = .038, h2p = 0.071) (Figure 2). Thus, subjects
increased their jumping performance from pre- to
post-test as well as from post- to retention-test.
This increase of performance was higher between
pre- and post-test than between post- and reten-
tion-test (unilateral: t30 = 3.80, p = .001; bilateral:
t29 = 3.87, p = .001). The bilateral practice group
increased its performance more than the unilateral
practice group. Post-hoc t-tests showed a significant
improvement of jumping performance for both
groups between pre- and post-, as well as between
post- and retention-test (pre-test to post-test unilat-
eral: t30 = −7.11, p < .001; pre-test to post-test bilat-
eral: t29 = −10.61, p < .001; post-test to retention-
test unilateral: t30 = −3.63, p = .001; post-test to
retention-test bilateral: t29 = −5.33, p < .001).
Discussion
The aim of our study was to compare a commonly
used unilateral jumping practice with a bilateral
jumping practice to find out if one method out-
matches the other. Our results show a superior
effect of bilateral practice compared to unilateral
practice after a 12-week practice programme. The
performance increase at post-test and retention-test
for the dominant limb was significantly higher for
the group that practiced equivalent with the domi-
nant and non-dominant limb compared to the
group that practiced only with the dominant limb.
Thereby, the higher performance increase of the
bilateral practice group was more pronounced
between pre- and post-test than between post- and
retention-test.
To our knowledge, this is the first study that inves-
tigated the effect of bilateral practice of an unilaterally
performed sport including the lower extremity. Our
findings support the results of Haaland and Hoff
(2003) who found a positive effect of non-dominant
limb practice on the performance of the dominant
limb in soccer-specific dribbling, shooting, and
passing tasks. In contrast, Teixeira et al. (2003) ana-
lysed the effect of bilateral practice on soccer-specific
dribbling and kicking tasks after a four-month prac-
tice programme and found a significant benefit of
bilateral practice only for the non-dominant but not
for the dominant limb. As they included only subjects
that had extensive previous soccer experience
 6 A. Focke et al.
between four and six years, the practice might have
been too unspecific to reach a performance progress
also for the dominant limb. However, this remains
speculative as Haaland and Hoff (2003) also included
experienced soccer players and found positive effects
of non-dominant leg practice for both legs after an
even shorter practice programme of eight weeks.
Our results are also in line with several previous
studies including movement tasks involving the
upper extremity (for a summary, see Maurer,
2005). Thus, a bilateral practice seems to be ben-
eficial for sports including both the upper and the
lower extremity.
Bilateral practice thereby seems to be beneficial for
several reasons. The transfer of learning caused by
bilateral practice can prevent an increment of lateral
asymmetries and thus compensate for performance
differences between the two body sides (Teixeira
et al., 2003). This can be crucial especially for
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sports games in which the inclusion of the non-domi-
nant body side offers an extension of possible moves
in a match. As practice of the non-dominant side can
also improve the performance of the dominant side,
practice with the non-dominant side is useful
during an injury-break, a blockade due to technical
difficulties, or to avoid overtraining. Above all, the
current and most of the previous studies showed
that with similar practice effort the performance
increase is higher for bilateral compared to unilateral
practice. Thus, a bilateral practice is not only ben-
eficial during practice periods in which the dominant
side cannot be practiced but also within the scope of
regular practice sessions. Additionally, this positive
practice effect seems to be relatively robust in our
study as the performance increase continued even
after the 12-week practice period. Nevertheless, the
benefit seems to be largest directly after the practice
period as the performance increase was less pro-
nounced between post- and retention-test.
Although, possible explanations for the benefit of
bilateral practice are discussed in the literature, the
underlying mechanisms have still not been fully
clarified. The cross-activation model (Parlow &
Kinsbourne, 1989) states that “bilateral cortical
activity generated during unilateral training drives
concurrent neural adaptations in both cerebral hemi-
spheres” (Ruddy & Carson, 2013, p. 2). Thus, unilat-
eral practice leads to a weakened copy of movement
representation in the hemisphere that normally con-
trols the muscles of the opposite limb (Ruddy &
Carson, 2013). In contrast, the bilateral access model
originally proposed by Taylor and Heilmann (1980)
states that motor engrams formed during unilateral
practice are either established in central brain
regions that are responsible for both sides or are
established in the responsible hemisphere but
available via callosal transfer. This enables access to
the motor engrams during movements with the
unpractised limb (Ruddy & Carson, 2013). If and
how these theoretical models can explain the benefit
of bilateral practice in long jump remains unclear as
these theories are mainly based on studies including
simple movement tasks of the upper extremity like
adaptation of reaching and pointing movements to
visuo-motor perturbations (Sainburg & Wang,
2002; Wang & Sainburg, 2004a, 2006, 2007) or
dynamic perturbations (Bagesteiro & Sainburg,
2002; Criscimagna-Hemminger et al., 2003; Stockin-
ger, Thürer, Focke, & Stein, 2015; Wang & Sain-
burg, 2004b), and are most likely not transferable
to complex sports movements including the lower
extremity (Wulf & Shea, 2002).
Due to our study design no assumptions can be
made regarding the optimal bilateral practice order
or the optimal time at which a bilateral practice
should be started. Previous studies showed a larger
learning gain for subjects that started learning a new
task with the non-dominant side before changing to
the dominant side compared to subjects that started
learning with the dominant side before changing to
the non-dominant side (Stöckel et al., 2011). In
addition, an early beginning of bilateral practice
seems to be beneficial compared to a delayed start
of bilateral practice (Maurer, 2005). However, these
previous studies only investigated movement tasks
including the upper limbs. Thus, further research is
needed to confirm findings of these previous studies
(Maurer, 2005; Stöckel et al., 2011) and transfer
them to different movement tasks also of the lower
extremity.
Subjects of our study were aged between 6 and 13
years and were experienced in track and field training
for 3.6 years on average. Thus, our results are not
necessarily valid for adults or subjects with less or
more experience in the tested movement task.
Although previous studies showed bilateral practice
was beneficial for adolescent and adult novices in
the upper extremity (Maurer, 2005; Stöckel et al.,
2011; Stöckel & Weigelt, 2012), we can only
assume that bilateral practice in the long jump
would be beneficial for novices of different ages.
However, since basic sport skills are taught at young
ages, the tested subject group of children and adoles-
cents seems to be an interesting group of learners and
thus the results of the current study have a high prac-
tical relevance.
In summary, our study showed superiority of bilat-
eral compared to unilateral practice in long jump for
children and adolescents of medium proficiency
level. Irrespective of the theoretical approaches
explaining the phenomenon of bilateral transfer, the
results do have a practical relevance. Bilateral
 Bilateral practice improves dominant leg performance in long jump
practice should be established in the early practice
programmes of track and field athletes not only to
improve the performance of the non-dominant leg
and reduce asymmetries but also to improve the per-
formance of the dominant take-off leg.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
authors.
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