## 4 Discussion
We also witnessed the values of anaerobic capacity in our study being higher than the values of other studies in the past [21, 26, 35], confirming that in recent years, the fitness protocols are mainly focused on improving anaerobic endurance rather than aerobic. The measurements of speed, acceleration and explosiveness through the 20, 10 and 5 m sprints, respectively, have returned some quite interesting results, as we noticed that speed only improved for Team 1 (\(-0.03\pm 0.03\) s), and acceleration improved for Teams 1 (\(-0.015\pm 0.01\) s) and 2 (\(-0.009\pm 0.01\) s), while explosiveness improved for all the teams: (Team 1 \(\rightarrow\)\(-0.011\pm 0\) s), (Team 2 \(\rightarrow\)\(-0.011\pm 0\) s) and (Team 3 \(\rightarrow\)\(-0.007\pm 0\) s). This finding shows that as the distance was getting longer, the protocols with the less training units did not give significant results. Thus, the heavy protocol improved speed, acceleration and explosiveness; the moderate protocol improved acceleration and explosiveness, and the light protocol only improved explosiveness. Some of the studies that have examined similar performance markers in basketball athletes through a 20 or a 10 m sprint have largely verified the findings of our own research, after displaying analogous improvements after 3 (\(-0.03\) s) and 6 (\(-0.028\) s) weeks of pre-season training [11, 36]. Nevertheless, the study by [PERSON] et al., 2020 [11] showed an improvement in a 10 m sprint measurement, despite the short duration of the training period, while the study by [PERSON] et al., 2019 [10] in high-level female basketball athletes showed that the results in a 20 m sprint test got worse (0.05 s) after a 27-day training period. These results confirm our previous allegation, since it is understood that the protocols with fewer training units may produce positive results mostly in shorter sprints. In addition, we identified two more studies that evaluated the effect of certain training programs on performance markers via a 5 m sprint test. The first one examined the effect of an 8-week mixed pyometric and balance training protocol in young female basketball athletes [37], while the other investigated the effect of a 10-week pyometric training protocol in young male basketball athletes [38]. The study by [PERSON] et al., 2020 [37] did not found any significant alterations, while the study by [PERSON] et al., 2019 [38] found a positive effect (\(-0.07\) s). The improvements in speed (0.03 s), acceleration (0.015 s) and explosiveness (0.011 s) for Team 1 were found to have a small effect size, but under real conditions, if someone considers that a sprint in basketball can start from 5 m, can reach up to 20 m and can last for \(\sim\)1-5 s [3, 18, 39], then it is understood that our athletes will have a much longer time to perform a sprint or a specific basketball movement than they had before. Consequently, the improvements that we demonstrated in relation to speed (Team 1), acceleration (Teams 1 and 2) and explosiveness (Teams 1, 2 and 3) can contribute significantly to the effectiveness of the athletes to perform specialized basketball movements faster than before, thus maximizing their performance. Vertical jumping ability showed similar large improvements for the three teams, with no accompanied significant differences between them. Vertical ability has been examined mainly after pyometric training protocols, which have caused similar improvements with those of our own study (3.1-6.3 cm) [4, 40]. The improvements of 2.28 cm (Team 1), 1.68 cm (Team 2) and 1.47 cm (Team 3) that we found in our study are considered to be more than sufficient to enhance vertical jumping ability, as previous studies have shown that a basketball athlete can perform an average of 46 jumps during a match, while the jump height for professional female and male basketball athletes ranges from \(\sim\)35 to \(\sim\)75 cm [3, 20, 39, 41].