The effect of slackline exercises on artistic gymnastics female balance beam performance

Aim: The aim of this research is to examine the effect of 12-week slackline exercises on artistic gymnastics female balance beam performance. Material and Method: The sample of the cross-sectional experimental study which has control-treatment groups design consisted of 30 female participants between the ages of 7 and 8 who have just started artistic gymnastics in Malatya Provincial Directorate of Youth Services. Participants were randomly and equally divided into control and treatment groups and were participated to 60 minutes of gymnastics training in each session, 3 days a week for 12 weeks. While the treatment group did slackline exercises for 20 minutes before the routine gymnastics training, the control group did only routine gymnastics training. Before and after the study, the participants' height, weight, flexibility, agility, 20m speed, backward throwing, visual and auditory reaction time, vertical jump, dynamic balance and the number of falling from the balance beam were measured. After the normality analyzes of the obtained data were tested with the Shaphiro Wilks and Levene's test in the IBM SPSS statistical package program, the Marginal homogeneity test was used to compare the dependent samples with more than two categorical variables, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test for the comparison of the locations of two populations using two matched samples, and the mixed design ANOVA test for repeated measurements. Significance level was accepted as p<.05. Results: As a result of 12-week slackline training, statistically significant differences were found between the experimental and control groups in terms of flexibility, agility, 20m sprint, backwards medicine ball throwing, auditory and visual reaction time, vertical jump and the number of falling from the balance beam. Conclusion: As a result of the study, it was seen that 12-week slackline training provided a positive development in both technical and dynamic balance, and also caused less falls and loss of balance in the techniques performed by the participants on the balance beam.