Effects of long interval training on muscular endurance and lower limb explosive power in adolescent pencak silat athlete

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of maximum aerobic speed-based long interval training on muscular endurance and lower-limb explosive power in adolescent Pencak Silat athletes. A quasi-experimental study employing a pretest–posttest control group design was conducted involving 20 adolescent Pencak Silat athletes, who were assigned to either an experimental group (n = 10) or a control group (n = 10). The experimental group completed a six-week long interval training program performed three times per week, whereas the control group continued their regular training routine. The outcome measures included upper-body muscular endurance assessed by the push-up test, abdominal muscular endurance by the sit-up test, back muscular endurance by the back-up test, lower-limb muscular endurance by the wall-sit test, and lower-limb explosive power by the standing broad jump test. Data were analyzed using the Shapiro–Wilk test, Levene's test, paired-samples t-test, and independent-samples t-test, with the significance level set at p < 0.05. The results demonstrated that long interval training significantly improved abdominal muscular endurance, back muscular endurance, lower-limb muscular endurance, and lower-limb explosive power (p < 0.05), whereas no significant improvement was observed in upper-body muscular endurance (p > 0.05). These findings suggest that maximum aerobic speed-based long interval training is an effective training method for enhancing core muscular endurance, lower-limb muscular endurance, and lower-limb explosive power in adolescent Pencak Silat athletes.