Investigation of the Anticipation Time in Forehand and Backhand Strokes of Badminton Players

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine if there was a difference between forehand and backhand coincidence-anticipation timing (CAT) performance of badminton players. Badminton players participating in the study are in the age range of 18-23 ( = 20.25, SS = 1.48) and 12 top athletes who regularly participated in Super League competitions in Turkey were selected (4 female and 8 male).Those athletes were determined by using the Purposive Sampling method. Participants were 12 elit badminton players (4 female and 8 male) whose ages ranged from 18 to 23 years ( = 20.25, SS = 1.48). CAT performances were measured with modified Bassin Anticipation Timer (BAT) device. Stimulus speed used for this study was set at 4 m / s. Participants were informed about the test protocol and they performed 3 trials with a racket to familiarize BAT device. Then, participants performed 20 trials for forehand and 20 trials for backhand strokes, 40 trials in total. Collected data were transformed to absolute error (AE) and variable error (VE) scores. Independent sample t-test was employed to calculate statistical data, and the significance level was set as 0.05. Results showed that there were significant differences between forehand and backhand strokes in terms of absolute and variable error scores of participants (p<0,05). As a conclusion, CAT performance of badminton players is effected during forehand and backhand strokes. CAT forehand stroke scores are better than the backhand stroke scores.