The effect of basic table tennis training on some physical and physiological characteristics of children

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the effect of table tennis training on some physical and physiological characteristics of children aged 9-12 years. The study included 30 healthy and volunteer students randomly selected from children who did not participate in sportive activities and divided into experimental and control groups. Table tennis training was applied to the experimental group for 8 weeks, while no training program was applied to the control group. Parameters such as flexibility, speed, reaction time, anaerobic and aerobic power were measured. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and dependent groups t-test for the differences between the pre-test and post-test values within the group. The pre-test and post-test means of the experimental and control groups were 18.44-17.70 and 19.09-19.28 kg/m2 for BMI, 0.20-0.18 and 0.20-0.20 s for reaction time, 24.60-26.47 and 23. 47-23.00 cm for flexibility, 5.78-5.56 and 6.00-6.05 s for 30 m sprint, 71.91-74.77 and 69.49-69.56 kgm/s for anaerobic power, 35.30-37.93 and 31.74-31.24 ml/kg/min for VO2max, respectively. According to the results, significant improvements in flexibility, anaerobic power, speed and reaction time were observed in the experimental group (p<0.05). These improvements were not observed in the control group. Also, a significant increase in VO2max values was recorded in the experimental group. The study reveals that table tennis training contributes positively to the physical and physiological development of children and regular exercises are important for a healthy development process of children.