Regular and long-term exercises such as volleyball can be used as an effective method to develop skeletal and bone growth, to increase bone formation and also to prevent osteoporosis. Also, in the execution of some special skills in volleyball, it is necessary to perform intense plyometric and periodic exercises. The aim of the current research was to compare two methods of plyometric and intense interval training during four weeks of zinc supplementation on two factors of bone mass growth in teenage volleyball players at the age of skeletal growth spurt. For this purpose, the number of 57 active and healthy teenage volleyball players (age: 13.0±0.94 years, height: 1.77±0.08 m, weight: 59.10±28.04 kg, and BMI: 18/76 ±2/13 kg/m2) were randomly selected as participants in six groups including: 1- plyometric exercise and zinc supplement (10 people), 2- plyometric exercise and placebo (8 people), 3 - Volleyball training and taking zinc supplements (9 people), 4- Placebo use (11 people), 5- Very intense intermittent exercise and zinc supplement use (10 people) and 6- Very intense intermittent exercise and placebo (9 people) were divided.
The training schedule was three sessions a week. The supplement groups also received 15 mg gluconate tablets produced by Nature made in England and the pseudo drug groups received tablets containing starch and fructose for daily consumption. The inter-group results showed a significant increase in serum alkaline phosphatase and osteocalcin levels after four weeks in the research groups (P<0.001). The post-test results showed the difference between the control group and other study groups (P<0.05). Therefore, due to the increase in the amount of bone mass growth factors in young volleyball athletes, both plyometric and intense interval training methods as well as zinc supplementation are recommended.