Abstract
In professional tennis today, there are more players grunting at higher and higher decibels. The current research investigates if grunting is beneficial in power movements based on the theory that it facilitates a forced exhalation by acting as a timing mechanism. Grunting has been demonstrated to give competitors an advantage in the sport of tennis but has not been examined in other sport contexts (Sinnett & Kingstone, 2010). The current research investigates if grunting can improve jumping and throwing distance. Performance measurements were taken on all tasks, left and right grip strength, vertical jump, medicine ball chest pass and standing broad jump, for grunting and non-grunting conditions. The results for the medicine ball chest pass and standing broad jump demonstrated that the means for the grunting condition (M = 4.77, SD = 1.25; M = 2.14, SD = .41) were significantly greater than the means for the non-grunting condition (M = 4.61, SD = 1.17, t(138) = -3.24 ; M = 2.07, SD = .41, t(135) = -5.96, p < .05) with small and medium effect sizes for the medicine ball chest pass and the standing broad jump (d = -.27 and -.51). Grunting was found to affect distance performance by improving the distance thrown or jumped when completing a medicine ball chest pass or a standing broad jump.
