The effect of a variable practice on tennis groundstroke learning of adult beginners
Keywords:variable practice, constant practice, contextual interference, tennis
The aim of study is to determine the effect of a variable practices method on groundstroke performance in tennis. Twentytwo beginner university students participated in the study voluntarily (age:22±3,4). The subjects were randomly assigned to each of the two groups: Constant Group (N=11) and Varied Group (N=11). The Constant Group practiced serve, volley and flat groundstrokes in each training session. The Varied Group practiced serve, volley and flat groundstrokes together with topspin and slice groundstrokes in each training session. Sessions were scheduled for two hours two days a week with a total of eleven weeks of training. A Tennis Skill Test (TST) was applied to all subjects with pre-tests and post-tests. Results showed
that a variable teaching methodology in groundstrokes may have increased the ability of beginner and intermediate players to learn variations of groundstrokes more than the constant practice.
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