**5. Conclusions**

The results demonstrated the strong effect of sport specialization on the motor control in elite athletes. Drop jump performed from different heights revealed peculiarities of MTU functioning which were similar to those used by athletes in competitive exercises. Thus, our data provided an important insight into the contribution of various mechanisms to generating power of a movement in top athletes from different sport disciplines. It has been determined that to achieve the maximum mechanical power in any motor action, athletes used their previous sport experience. Apparently, athletes chose a motor program that maximized the MTU potential, but they used the energy of elastic deformation stored in muscles and

tendons in different ways: (1) the energy of elastic deformation permitted to obtain the maximum power due to conjoint work of muscles and tendons; (2) the energy of elastic deformation was accumulated in the tendons for its further recuperation into the muscles and their additional stretching; (3) the energy of elastic deformation dissipated with heat and the movement was performed due to muscle activation. This study confirmed the presence of two mechanisms for transferring elastic deformation energy in the lower extremities: the MTU pre-stretch mechanism and the mechanism of energy transfer via biarticular muscles. These results helped us understand how athletes of different sport specializations employed different mechanisms to increase efficiency of generation of mechanical power taking into account requirements to performance of their main sport exercise.

There were certain limitations in our work. As there were not so many elite athletes to form the experimental groups, the number of subjects in the samples was quite small. Thus, it was not possible to carry out a sufficient statistical analysis. Nevertheless, the results allowed us to define the general trend. Besides that, the work lacks experimental data related to sport exercises. Availability of such data and development of appropriate models would make it possible to expand the comparative analysis of the data. To continue this work in future, it seems important to use an individualized approach to assessing the effectiveness of each elite athlete, taking into account peculiarities of his/her sport technique. A very interesting lead for further research is modeling of conscious control of skeletal muscles and the whole body, taking into account regularities related to the use of various mechanisms of generation power of movements and behavior of MTU presented in this article.

The results of the study are useful for interpretation of differences in test jumps performed by top athletes in the course of regular control. The results of our study may help coaches choose appropriate means and methods of strength training in different sport disciplines, develop special exercises and training regimens for them.

## **Conflict of interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.
