Inspection of the effects of twelve-week tennis courses on visual and auditory reaction times of 8-10 years old children

The aim of this study is to inspect the effects of twelve-week tennis courses on visual and auditory reaction times of the children between 8 and 10 years old. A three week training program based on modern tennis learning techniques and tactics has been prepared and implemented on children of 8, 9 and 10 years old. The subjects were trained one and half hour three times a week.24 female and 30 male students from FSM tennis club of Afyonkarahisar attended to our study voluntarily. Subjects took one measurement before and one measurement after training. In these measurements; heights, body weights, reaction of right-left hands to light and sounds, grabbing power of right-left hands, flexibility, anaerobic power values have been measured. For defining the age and sex difference between pre (first measurement) and post (second measurement) tests, Wilcoxon sign numbers test has been used. SPSS 16.0 package program has been used for evaluation of statistical data. Meaningfulness value between variables have been found as p<0,01 and p<0,05.Subjects were classified according to their age groups as the first group of 8 years olds, second group of 9 years olds and third group of 10 years olds. 8 females and 10 males were allotted to each group. Height average of 8 years olds was 129,5 cm for males and 130,8 cm for females, for 9 years olds height average was 135,8 cm for males and 132,1 cm for females and the height average of ten years olds was 144,6 cm for males and 145,0 cm for females.Weight average of 8 years old males was 27,3 kg and for females it was27,7 kg. Weight average of 9 years olds was 36,7 kg for males and 34,0 kg for females. For 10 years olds, weight average was 39,8 kg for males and 40,6 kg for females.Daily exercise of one and half hour three times a week for three months showed that these exercises shortened the reaction times (for light and sound) of 8, 9 and 10 years old female and male students. These exercises also strengthened the grabbing powers for all age groups and increased flexibility of 8 years old males and females. These differences show a meaningfulness of 0,01 and 0,05 levels statistically.Another finding from the study was a meaningful rise for anaerobic powers of 9 and 10 years old females after a training of 3 months p<0,05. There was a numerical increase in anaerobic powers of other students in other groups but this situation was not found statistically meaningful.