The Effect Of Plyometric Exercises On Leg Muscle Variation On The Crescent Kick Ability Of Pencak Silat Athletes Persinas Asad Gowa Regency

Abstract

Pencak silat is an Indonesian martial art that has developed into a competitive sport requiring technical mastery, physical readiness, tactical awareness, and strong character. One of the important attacking techniques in pencak silat competition is the crescent kick, which demands lower-limb explosive power, balance, coordination, speed, and accuracy. However, many young athletes still experience difficulties in executing fast and powerful crescent kicks. Therefore, an appropriate physical training method is needed to support technical improvement. This study aimed to determine the effect of varied lower-limb plyometric training on the crescent kick ability of Persinas ASAD pencak silat athletes in Gowa Regency. This research used a quantitative approach with a pre-experimental method and a One-Group Pretest–Posttest Design. The sample consisted of 15 athletes aged 14–17 years who were selected randomly from approximately 50 athletes. The intervention was conducted for 12 training sessions from February to April 2025 at the Persinas ASAD Training Center, Gowa Regency. The training program consisted of varied lower-limb plyometric exercises, including box jumps and single-leg hops. Data were collected using a 10-second crescent kick test and analyzed through descriptive statistics, normality testing, and paired-samples t-test. The results showed that the mean pretest score was 16.87, while the mean posttest score increased to 21.73, with a mean difference of 4.86 and an improvement percentage of approximately 29.03%. The t-test result showed that t-count = 8.72 was higher than t-table = 2.145, with a significance value of 0.000 < 0.05. It can be concluded that varied lower-limb plyometric training significantly improves the crescent kick ability of pencak silat athletes.