Effects of Motor Mental Imagery Training on Tennis Service Performance during the Ramadan Fasting: a Randomized, Controlled Trial.

Sofien Fekih, Mohamed Sami Zguira, Abdessalem Koubaa, Liwa Masmoudi, Nicola Luigi Bragazzi, Mohamed Jarraya

Journal: Nutrients 2021;12(4):1035

PMID: 32283820

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to analyze the effects of motor mental imagery training on tennis service performance among tennis athletes who fast during Ramadan. Participants were 38 young male tennis players, randomly divided into two groups: Imaging Training (IMG, = 18) and control group (CG, = 20). The CG has watched videos on the history of the Olympic Games, while IMG has followed a training program in motor imagery. The performance of the tennis service was obtained by the product between accuracy and speed of typing (accuracy x average speed of all shots (km/h)). The effect of group / time interaction ( < 0.01) was identified for all performance indicators (accuracy, running speed and performance (speed x precision)), with improvement only in IMG ( = 0.01). The results showed that motor imagery training could be an effective strategy for mitigating/counteracting the negative effects of Ramadan on the tennis service performance.

Address: Higher Institute of Sport and Physical Education of Gafsa, Gafsa 2100, Tunisia.; Institute of Sport and Physical Education of Ksar Said, University of Manouba, Manouba 2010, Tunisia.; Research Unit: Education, Motricity, Sports and Health, (EM2S, UR15JS01), Higher Institute of Sport and Physical Education of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax 3100, Tunisia.; Department of Physiology and Lung Function Testing, Faculty of Medicine Ibn-El-Jazzar, University of Sousse, Sousse 4000, Tunisia.; Laboratory of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax 3100, Tunisia.; Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health (DINOGMI), Section of Psychiatry, Genoa University, Genoa 16132, Italy.; Postgraduate School of Public Health, Department of Health Sciences (DISSAL), Genoa University, 16132 Genoa, Italy.; Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (LIAM), Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada.; Research Laboratory Sport Performance Optimization, National Centre of Medicine and Sciences in Sport (CNMSS), Tunis 2000, Tunisia.

DOI: 10.3390/nu12041035

Link outs

Free resources

Full Text Sources:

MeSH Terms: Adolescent, Athletes, Athletic Performance, Fasting, Humans, Imagination, Learning, Male, Motor Skills, Psychomotor Performance, Religion, Tennis