Journal of Clinical and Experimental Investigations

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the warm-up habit and level of knowledge in the amateur athletes.
Materials and methods: A total of 510 amateur athletes aged between 17 and 30 years with the mean sport age of 6.2±3.4 years were included. There were 360 males (mean age 22.4±2.0 years) and 150 females (mean age 21.2±2.1 years). Warm-up habits of athletes were obtained using by the Likert-type survey questionnaire consisting of 20 ques-tions. The reliability coefficient of the survey had been calculated as cronbach alph=0.647, KMO=0.715, Bar-lett=1968.711 (p<0.05).
Results: It was observed that 56.3% of the athletes had sportive success in elite level and 25% of the male athletes and 32% of the female athletes had never injured before. Item of "warm-up has no effect on the performance of the athlete" was rejected with the mean score of 2.70±0.93, item of "warm-up lessens the risk of being injured for the ath-letes" was accepted by majority (83.9%). Of all athletes, 83.9% of them had been injured more than once. The warm-up habit was found to be performed in 47.8% at pre-training or pre-competition periods, however cool-down habit was found in 17.3% of athletes at the end of activity.
Conclusion: There was a common belief that warm-up had a positive effect on the performance of the athletes, re-duced the risk of injury, increased the movement angle of joints. But it can be said that habits of the amateurs was not at a sufficient level.