## 3 Results  
A total of 78 participants (mean age 24.96 \(\pm\) 6.11 years) completed all tests and evaluations required for the study (Figure 1), with 64.1% of participants being male and 35.9% female. No baseline differences were observed between the two groups in terms of clinical characteristics (Table 1). The analysis of variance conducted to assess the treatment's effectiveness, with the interaction between group and time as the primary variable of interest, revealed no statistically significant improvements in flexibility (F = 1.000; \(p\) = 0.500; \(\eta_{\text{p}}\)2 = 0.032), PPT (F = 0.393; \(p\) = 0.758; \(\eta_{\text{p}}\)2 = 0.016), or strength (F = 0.495; \(p\) = 0.687500; \(\eta_{\text{p}}\)2 = 0.020) (Table 2). Nei \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**All (78)**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**CG (39)**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**NLG (39)**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\(p\)} \\ \cline{3-8} \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Categorical**} & **F** & **\%** & **F** & **\%** & **F** & **\%** & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Gender} & Female & 28 & 35.9 & 13 & 33.3 & 14 & 35.9 & \\  & Male & 50 & 64.1 & 26 & 66.7 & 25 & 64.1 & 0.966 \\  & No & 9 & 11.6 & 4 & 10.3 & 5 & 12.8 & \\ \cline{1-1}  & Yes & 69 & 88.4 & 35 & 89.7 & 34 & 87.2 & 0.883 \\ \hline \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Continuous**} & **Mean** & **SD** & **Mean** & **SD** & **Mean** & **SD** & **_p_** \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Gee} & Age & 24.96 & 6.11 & 25.17 & 5.74 & 24.78 & 6.48 & 0.782 \\  & Height (cm) & 173.05 & 8.89 & 173.53 & 7.64 & 172.63 & 9.94 & 0.663 \\  & Weight (Kg) & 71.65 & 14.03 & 72.15 & 12.88 & 71.21 & 15.11 & 0.771 \\  & KEA (Grades) & 143.39 & 11.88 & 142.47 & 11.03 & 144.20 & 12.67 & 0.529 \\ \cline{1-1}  & PPT (Kg/cm\({}^{2}\)) & 3.69 & 1.31 & 3.65 & 1.29 & 3.74 & 1.33 & 0.764 \\ \cline{1-1}  & Strength (N) & 170.93 & 53.26 & 166.86 & 57.94 & 174.50 & 49.24 & 0.534 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} Abbreviations. F: frequency; %: percentage; \(p\)-value; SD: standard deviation; \(p\): \(p\)-value; KEA: Knee Extension Angle; PPT: pressure pain threshold; CG: control group; NLG: hameting stretching program with neural load group; cm: centimeters; Kg: kilograms; Kg/cm\({}^{2}\): kilograms per square centimeter; N: Newton.  
\end{table} 
Table 1: Morphological and clinical characteristics of the sample at baseline. Figure 1: CONSORT flow diagram of the study sample. ther treatment demonstrated superior efficacy after the first session [Flexibility MD = \(-\)3.0; 95%CI = \(-\)8.4 to 2.3; \(p\) = 0.261), PPT (MD = \(-\)0.5; 95%CI = \(-\)1.4 to 0.5; \(p\) = 0.359) and Strength (MD = \(-\)6.7; 95%CI = 32.3 to 18.9; \(p\) = 0.603)], at post-treatment [Flexibility MD = \(-\)2.3; 95%CI = \(-\)7.6 to 3.1; \(p\) = 0.401), PPT (MD = \(-\)0.1; 95%CI = \(-\)0.7 to 0.5; \(p\) = 0.751) and Strength (MD = \(-\)14.7; 95%CI = \(-\)42.0 to 12.7; \(p\) = 0.288)], or at follow-up [Flexibility MD = \(-\)4.3; 95%CI = \(-\)9.0 to 0.5; \(p\) = 0.075), PPT (MD = \(-\)0.2; 95%CI = \(-\)0.8 to 0.3; \(p\) = 0.442) and Strength (MD = \(-\)14.7; 95%CI = \(-\)35.3 to 14.4; \(p\) = 0.405)] (Table 3). The group performing stretching without neural load showed improvements in flexibility after the first session (MD = \(-\)3.9; 95%CI = \(-\)7.3 to \(-\)0.5; \(p\) = 0.018), which were maintained at two months (MD = \(-\)8.1; 95%CI = \(-\)12.2 to \(-\)3.9; \(p\) < 0.001) but disappeared at follow-up (MD = \(-\)3.9; 95%CI = \(-\)7.8 to 0.02; \(p\) = 0.052), with no significant differences observed between the initial evaluation and subsequent assessments for PPT [After 1 st Session (MD = \(-\)0.3; 95%CI = \(-\)1.1 to 0.4; \(p\) = 1.000); Post-Treatment (MD = \(-\)0.3; 95%CI = \(-\)0.8 to 0.2; \(p\) = 0.830); Follow-up (MD = \(-\)0.2; 95%CI = \(-\)0.7 to 0.3; \(p\) = 1.000)] and strength [After 1 st Session (MD = \(-\)1.1; 95%CI = \(-\)9.0 to 6.7; \(p\) = 1.000); Post-Treatment (MD = \(-\)6.1; 95%CI = \(-\)20.8 to 8.7; \(p\) = 1.000); Follow-up (MD = \(-\)4.6; 95%CI = \(-\)17.5 to 8.3; \(p\) = 1.000)] (Table 4).