Efficiency of application of exercises to improve the technique of «moving in the direction» in qualified athletes-orienteering

The article examines the issue of improving the technical skill of orienteers as one of the components of the process of training athletes. The relevance of the research topic is due to the modern features of conducting sports orienteering competitions on the terrain. There is a tendency to conduct them on open grounds, which contributes to faster passing of distances, where the trajectory of movement is as close as possible to a straight line. The purpose of the studyis to determine the effect of using exercises to improve the technique of action «movement by direction» on the competitive results of qualified orienteering athletes. Material and methods of research. As a result of the analysis of literary sources, errors of athletes at competitive distances and the results of observations and experience of leading specialists, an insufficient level of the «movement by direction» technique of qualified orienteers was revealed. To improve this action, exercises for athletes were developed and practically applied in training practice. 46 athletes who were part of the Kharkiv Oblast and national orienteering national teams of Ukraine in age groups M-18, M-20, M-21 took part in the study. The experimental group consisted of 25 orienteers who, during the questionnaire, expressed their desire to participate in the study and apply the suggested exercises in the training process. Results of work.The results of the performances of orienteering athletes at the World Championship (WOC (2019, 2021)) and the Championship of Ukraine (2018-2021) in different age categories were analyzed. The dynamics of distance covered by athletes according to the lag factor (k) for the TOP-10 (in each of the categories) were determined. The analysis of distance errors revealed that significant losses of time on the distance in qualified athletes occurred due to deviations from the direction of movement. For the athletes of the experimental group, recommendations were developed regarding the use of exercises to improve the «movement by direction» action technique in the training process. For each of them, the dynamics of passing the distance according to the lag coefficient were determined and the average coefficient was calculated based on the results of the competition. Conclusions. The results of the analysis of foreign and domestic literary sources devoted to the training of orienteers allow us to conclude about the limitation of theoretical and practical research related to the technical training of athletes, the presence of separate recommendations on the formation of action techniques and the absence of works related to the improvement of technical skills of qualified athletes. The analysis of orienteers’ performances at competitions WOC (2019, 2021) and ChU (2018-2021) revealed the dependence of the success of athletes of the same qualification in completing the competitive distance on the level of formation of the technique of action «movement according to direction». Experimental verification of the application of exercises to improve the technique of action «movement by direction» in the training process of qualified orienteering athletes led to a significant improvement in the indicators of the average coefficient of lagging at the distance in athletes (p<0.001) and the formation of the ability to maintain the direction of movement in azimuth during the competition