Assessing the acute effects of a video-based warm-up on the perceptual and decision-making components of agility in rugby football using 3D motion analysis

This research examined the acute effects of implementing a video-based warm-up intervention on performance in a sport-specific agility test. Thirty junior representative rugby players were allocated into three experimental groups (implicit, explicit, control) and performed a series of 1-v-1 agility trials, with response time measured by a 3D motion analysis system. Analysis showed that response time improved in both the explicit (p=0.030) and implicit (p=0.049) groups (improvement of 19.1% and 15.7%, respectively), while the control group (p=0.367) remained stable (improvement of 4.6%). The results may suggest that an athlete’s anticipation ability may benefit from the use of video-based warm-up strategy.