Development of a Specific Training Program to Improve Physical Fitness and Side Kick Skill for Female Wushu Sanda Athletes

Background and Aim: At present, female athletes from the Wushu Sanda team of Jiaozuo City, Henan Province, are still weak in physical fitness and the side kick skills, which are the most frequently used and most scored in the competition. So, the main objective of this research was to develop a specific training program to improve physical fitness and side kick skill for female wushu sanda athletes. Materials and Methods: This research was a quasi-experimental research; The samples were the 44 females from Wushu Sanda teams in Henan Province. The research proceeded with interviewing 5 experts to find the scope draft of the training program, and was confirmed by 9 experts. The developed program was validated with 5 experts with the Index of Item Objective Congruence (IOC) and found of 0.94 and found reliability of 0.85. The two-group pre-test and post-test experimental design was operated for 8 weeks, 3 days a week, 90 minutes per day on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the experimental group by the specific training program and Tuesdays and Thursdays by the traditional training program. But the control group was trained by a traditional training program for 5 days. Data analysis with paired t-tests for within groups and independent t-tests for between groups, with a significance level of .05. Results: 1. The post-test of the experimental group on physical fitness, side kick skills, and FMS tests were significantly better than the pretest in all variables, but in the control group, there was a significant better in all tests except the wall sit test and hurdle step test, which showed no significant difference. 2. The comparison of post-test between the experimental group and the control group showed no significant difference, only for the agility test in the physical fitness test. But on the other physical fitness tests, all FMS and all side kick skills tests in the experimental group were significantly better than in the control group. 3. The confirmation of the specific training program was accepted as appropriate and practical by experts. Conclusion: The specific training program designed by the researcher was tested for quality by experts and found to be reliable and applicable in the experiment. The experimental results in most of the variables that needed to be developed showed positive improvements and had statistically significant differences.