Comparing Balance Abilities in Different Sports

Abstract

It is known that balance ability has an importance in terms of sportive performance. Balance ability also showed an important relationship between insufficiencies and performance and sports injuries. Object: The aim of this study is to examine balance ability in several sports. Materials and Methods: Totally 48 male and female athletes consisting of Wrestling (W, n: 13), Futsal (F, n: 10), Taekwondo (T, n: 15), and Cross Country Skiing (CCS, n: 10) whose mean ages were 20.2 ± 0.57, 24.4 ± 1.54, 20.4 ± 0.49 and 16.9 ± 0.09respectively, participated voluntarily to this study. Participants' height (cm) was measured with a stadiometer, body weight (kg) was measured with TANITA BC-418 and leg lengthswere measured with a measuring tape. Y-Balance test (cm) was used in the application of balance tests. Findings: The data were statistically evaluated in the SPSS 23 program and the Kruskal Wallis test was applied to determine the relationship between the groups. Tukey test was applied to determine which group caused the difference and the level of significance was chosen as 0.05. In the evaluation, statistically significant difference in the balance parameters was found between Right anterior and WT, FT, F-CCS, T-CCS sports branches, between Right medial and W-F, F-T, F-CCS sports branches, between Left anterior and W-T, W-CCS, F-T, F - CCS, T-CCS sports branches and between Left medial and W-F, F-T, F-CCS sports branches (p0.05). Result: The balance parameter differs according to sports branches. When these differences are evaluated, it can be said that the best results for all balance parameters are for Cross Country Skiing, Taekwondo, Wrestling and Futsal athletes, respectively.