A COMPARISON OF 2 MODES OF CERVICAL EXERCISE IN ADOLESCENT MALE-ATHLETES

Objective: The Saturn-Ring is a new device that claims to increase cer vical strength and flexibility. Therefore, the objective was to assess if use of the Saturn-Ring with conventional exercise would increase c ervical strength, flexibility and circumference over conventional exer cise alone. Design: Subjects were randomly divided into two matched gr oups and a before/after design utilized. For pretest data, collection was done in a double-blind fashion. During the post-test, only the ath lete knew the group in which he had participated. Setting: The entire study was conducted in a high school field house. Participants: Fifty football players randomly chosen from a high school team served as sub jects for the study. One subject was randomly selected from the pool o f potential players and a matched subject was selected for the second group according to age, height and weight. This continued until both g roups had 25 subjects. Intervention: In addition to normal football ex ercises and practice, the experimental group used the Saturn-Ring five times a week over the 8-wk exercise program. Main Outcome Measures: C ervical strength and flexibility (flexion, extension, right lateral fl exion and left lateral flexion) and girth size of the neck were measur ed before and after an 8-wk exercise program. Results: Both groups sho wed significant gains in strength, flexibility and neck size. Further testing determined that the post-test results for the experimental gro up were significantly greater than the post-test results for the contr ol group for neck sizes and all possible strength and flexibility meas urements. Conclusions: The result of this study indicate that Saturn-R ing exercises in conjunction with conventional exercises will signific antly increase cervical strength, flexibility and size over convention al exercises alone. There were several implications for further study: a) replicate the study to single out the effect of the Saturn-Ring al one, b) replicate the study with a broader spectrum of the population and include injured patients and c) research is needed to assess if th e use of the Saturn-Ring can decrease the potential for cervical injur y.