Psycho-physiological parameters characterizing table tennis athletes Reaction time to visual stimuli is a predictive parameter of the table-tennis skills, both in Athletes as in neophyte Children

Introduction Are there some psycho-physiological parameters able to recognize Table Tennis Athletes inside the population? And, inside the Athletes, do the same parameters correlate with their skill? Is a Table Tennis training able to modify the reactivity in children? Is there a method to discriminate in children neophytes, between the future sportsman and the ones intended to be only gamers? Our study answers positively to all these questions. Method Using proprietary software that operates on a standard PC, we operationally defined four variables, respectively: the speed of reaction to a visual stimulus, the precision in the spatial detection, the coordination in temporal forecast and the resistance to sustained attention. The differences held by practicing vs non-practicing Table Tennis players being confirmed by this paradigm,, we tried to understand if such situation is the cause or the effect of practicing TableTennis. To obtain it, we measured in children who have never played in this sport, the reactivity before and after a standardized course of approaching Table Tennis. After the course, children attended to a tournament with the aim of discriminating their skills and see the possibility of using these paradigms for talent identification in neophyte children . Results We found that all the four tests are able to discriminate the population of Athletes from the non-Athletes. Inside the Athletes group, the same parameters correlate with the agonistic skill, especially the "reaction time". About reactivity in children, we saw after the course that the quick children remain quickest but the slow ones improve in quickness. This let us suppose that there are two different components in reaction time, a neural one (more difficult to be modified by training) and a muscular one. About skill, the results of the tournament confirm that the paradigm is also able to preview a talent opportunity in future competitions.