Spor Bilimleri Dergisi, cilt.35, sa.1, ss.36-45, 2024 (Hakemli Dergi)
The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a 6 week oculomotor exercise program on hand-eye coordination, reaction time, visual perception and dynamic visual acuity with table tennis athletes. 50 table tennis players included in the study were randomly divided in to oculomotor exercise (OMEG, n=25) and control (CG, n=25) groups. While the two groups continued their routine tennis training programs, oculomotor exercises with gaze stabilization were applied to OMEG twice a day for 6 weeks via the WhatsApp application. Plate tapping test was used to evaluate the eye-hand coordination of the participants, reaction time test (number of hits and average reaction time) using the Blazepod device was used to evaluate reaction times, and forms A and B of the Trail Making Test (TMT-A ve TMT-B) were used to evaluate visual perception. Dynamic visual acuity test with powerpoint was used to evaluate the dynamic visual acuity of the participants. The paired t-test and two-sample t-test was executed to examine within and between the groups. The OMEG had significant improvements in hand-eye coordination, visual perception, reaction time and dynamic visual acuity (p<0.05). Significant differences between both groups were observed in the plate tapping test (t=-3.560, p=0.01) and TMT-A (t=-2.276, p=0.027). The 6 week oculomotor exercise program is able to improve hand-eye coordination and visual perception for table tennis athletes.