Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: Competitive sports such as wheelchair basketball for people with disabilities are growing rapidly and are probably one of the most popular sports for people with disabilities. Moreover, the conducted studies have demonstrated that the evaluation of physical performance by field tests in different classes of wheelchair basketball could be very important for the optimal design of training programs to improve the performance of wheelchair basketball players. Furthermore, studies have shown that sports activity positively affects the quality of life of athletes with physical disabilities. In addition, athletes with physical disabilities had a better sense of physical ability and self–esteem. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to determine the effect of a combined plyometric and resistance exercise program on strength and power performance and its relationship with the components of quality of life, general health, physical self–concept, perception of pain, and stress in the female wheelchair basketball players of Iran national team.
Methods: In this quasi–experimental and applied study, twenty female athletes who were the Iranian national basketball team members were divided into the control (10 people) and experimental (10 people) groups. Our participants performed combined plyometric and resistance training for 4 weeks in this study. In the present study, the participants warmed up for 10 minutes at the beginning of each session using Circuit Resistance Training. After that, two exercises were performed for each muscle group, including shoulder, chest, back, abdomen, biceps, triceps, forearm, and wrist, with 50% of one maximum repetition, or 1RM, for three sets with 20 repetitions in each set. In the session, plyometric exercises started 10 minutes after finishing resistance exercises. Plyometric exercises, including throwing a 5–kg medicine ball, were performed for two sets with six repetitions in each set. Then, at the beginning and the end of the research, physical performance factors, the 36–Item Short Form Survey (SF–36) (Ware et al., 1993), The McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) (Melzack, 1987), the World Health Organization Quality–of–Life Scale (WHOQOL–BREF) (WHOQOL group, 1998), the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen et al., 1983), and the Physical Self–description Questionnaire (Marsh, 1996) were taken. Data analysis was done using ANOVA and the Pearson partial correlation coefficient in SPSS version 26, and the effect size of the training intervention was determined using STATA version 12 statistical software. The significance level of the tests was 0.05.
Results: The results of comparing the strength as well as explosive performance of the upper limbs of the wheelchair basketball players in the experimental group (10 people) and the control group (10 people) demonstrated that the training intervention significantly increased the strength performance of the biceps muscle (p<0.001), strength performance of trunk flexion (p<0.001), strength performance of shoulder flexion (p<0.001), explosive performance of chest pass (p=0.002) as well as explosive performance of backward throw (p<0.001) in the experimental group. Moreover, training intervention caused a significant reduction in time of short–distance speed performance without a ball (p=0.032), agility performance with a ball (p<0.001), and agility performance without a ball (p=0.003) in the experimental group. Finally, the results of the correlation analysis showed a direct and significant relationship between the explosive performance variable of the chest pass and the quality of life (p=0.044). Furthermore, there was a negative and significant relationship between the variables of pain perception and perceived stress and physical performance components (p<0.05).
Conclusion: According to the findings of the present research, combined plyometric and resistance exercises can improve the physical performance of national team wheelchair female basketball players and can be proposed as a practical solution to be used in the training programs of the coaches of these athletes.