AUTHOR=Fleddermann Marie-Therese , Zentgraf Karen 

TITLE=Tapping the Full Potential? Jumping Performance of Volleyball Athletes in Game-Like Situations

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=9

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01375

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01375

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> One key issue in elite interactive team sports is the simultaneous execution of motor actions (e.g., dribbling a ball) and perceptual-cognitive tasks (e.g., visually scanning the environment for action choices). In volleyball, one typical situation is to prepare and execute maximal block jumps after multiple-options decision-making and concurrent visual tracking of the ongoing game dynamics to find an optimal blocking location. Based on resource-related dual- and multi-tasking theories simultaneous execution of visual-cognitive and motor tasks may interfere with each other. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate whether volleyball-specific perceptual-cognitive demands (i.e., divided attention, decision making) affect blocking performance (i.e., jumping performance and length of the first step after the ready-block-position) compared to relatively isolated jumping performance.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> Twenty-two elite volleyball players (1st – 3rd German league) performed block jumps in front of a net construction in a single-task condition (ST) and in two perceptual (-cognitive) dual-task conditions including a dual-task low (DT_L; presenting a picture of an opponent attack on a screen) and a dual-task high condition (DT_H; presenting videos of an offensive volleyball set play with a two-alternative choice).</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> The results of repeated-measures ANOVAs showed a significant effect of conditions on jumping performance [<italic>F</italic>(2,42) = 33.64, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001, η<sub>p</sub><sup>2</sup> = 0.62] and on the length of the first step after the ready-block-position [<italic>F</italic>(2,42) = 7.90, <italic>p</italic> = 0.001, η<sub>p</sub><sup>2</sup> = 0.27). <italic>Post hoc</italic> comparisons showed that jumping performance in DT_H (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001) and DT_L (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001) was significantly lower than in ST. Also, length of the first step after the ready-block-position in DT_H (<italic>p</italic> = 0.005) and DT_L (<italic>p</italic> = 0.028) was significantly shorter than in ST.</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> Our findings suggest that blocking performance (i.e., jumping height, length of the first step) decreases in elite volleyball players when a perceptual (-cognitive) load is added. Based on the theory of <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B41">Wickens (2002)</xref>, this suggests a resource overlap between visual-processing demands for motor performance and for tracking the dynamics of the game. Interference with the consequence of dual-task related performance costs can therefore also be found in elite athletes in their specific motor expert domain.</p>