The flexibility consists in the motor capacity related with the amplitude of movement reached by each joint. The flexibility suffers decrease with the age, being that during the adolescence, in result of the fast pubertal growth, considerable loss of this characteristic occurs. It is known, also, that athletes of soccer and futsal, as result of the programs of force aiming the gesture of the kick, tend to have considerable shortening of posterior thigh muscles, that promotes a loss of income and it premakes the athletes to the muscular injuries. Thus, the objective of the present study was to verify the effect in the flexibility by a program of Pilates® in a sub-20 futsal team, that is considerate a highly inclined population to limitations of this capacity, and that can afford a lot of benefits with the increment of it. For such, it was divided the athletes group in Pilates group (GP, n = 6) and control group (GC, n = 5). It was opted to evaluate the flexibility of athletes with two methods (fleximeter and Wells's bench). Evaluations were realized in three distinct moments: pre (24 hours before the start of the program), post-immediate (24 hours after the end of the program) and post-delayed (15 days after the end of the program). The program was realized three times per week with approximately 25 minutes, during four weeks. The results of the present study prove that the training protocol with the Pilates® method used by the researchers did increase the flexibility of sub-20 futsal athletes. This program presented acute effects, represented by the statistically significant increase to the flexibility in post-immediate (p < 0.05 in Wells's bench and p < 0.01 in Fleximeter), and chronics, observed on the small decline (no statistically significant, p > 0.05) in post-delayed period to the both methods. It is suggested that more studies should be to realize with the Pilates® method aiming to elucidate all possibilities of application of this therapeutic modality.
Sport; Adolescents; Prevention; Muscle shortening
