The effects of cognitive learning and imagination training on the balances of the 14-16 years old handball players

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of imagination and cognitive learning exercises, which are applied to increase the success of elite handball players, on their balance skills. The research group consists of a total of 36 voluntary male athletes, 18 of which are the control group and 18 of them are the experimental group, aged between 14 and 16, with at least 5 years of sports experience, who have been playing handball in Kayseri Youth Sports Club. For the study group, 8-day, 30-minute cognitive training and imagination study program was applied as two sets per day. No exercise was applied to the control group. Static and dynamic balance tests were applied to all of the participants (study and control group at the beginning and end of the study. According to the results of the analysis performed at the end of the study, a significant difference was found between the post-test results of all balance parameters of the experimental and control groups (p <0.05). When the pre-test and post-test results of the control group were compared, there was a significant difference between the scores of Static, Level8, Level4 and Oscillation CE (p<0.05) and there was no significant difference between Level2 and Oscillation OE (p>0.05). When the pre-test and post-test results of the experimental group were compared, a significant difference was found between all equilibrium parameters (p<0.05). As the result, it was found that cognitive imagination programs have positive effects on learning the balance skills in handball players under the light of the obtained findings.