ARE THERE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN HANDEDNESS, COMPETITIVE RESULTS AND MOTIVATION IN WHEEL GYMNASTS?

Abstract

Handedness is a performance-influencing factor in many competitive sports. In female team handball, psychological factors such as motivation have been connected to handedness. It should be researched whether this is also the case in wheel gymnastics and whether motivation is related to performance or handedness. For this purpose, 203 German wheel gymnasts were studied. There are significant differences in motivational aspects between gymnasts of different handedness within the straight line discipline. No differences were found in the all-around. There were not enough cases of gymnasts competing in spiral or vault only. When comparing the prevalence of different types of handedness in the general population to those among wheel gymnasts, no specific evaluation could be conducted for male gymnasts due to too few cases, although it should be noted that all 13 male participants were right-handed. When comparing the percentages of the left-handed and ambidextrous among female gymnasts to those in the general female population, it is evident that there is a higher percentage of ambidexters and left-handers among wheel gymnasts than in the general female population. There are differences in the percentages of female gymnasts of different handedness competing in straight line and all-around. There are correlations between percentage of handedness and competitive results when considering quintiles of competitive results (e. g. r = 0.949 and p ≤ 0.014 for technical difficulty in left-handed athletes). Our results suggest that it might be necessary to consider handedness when it comes to individual coaching and selection.