Comparative characteristics of Lithuanian deaf basketball national team players’ body and functional capacity and indices of the game in the world championships

Abstract

Lithuanian deaf basketball players are the numerous winners in the World and European Championships, as well as in Deaflympics. The latter significant victory of Lithuanian deaf basketball players is the winning of the gold medals in 2015 World Championship. Body and functional capacities of these athletes, as well as their body adaptation to training loads and performed sporting activity is under our continuous observation (Milasius et al., 2007; 2014; Satas et al., 2008; 2010; Dadelienė et al., 2011). Victories of the deaf athletes is an indicator for increasing popularity of this sport. Preparedness and game quality of both groups of athletes (the ones with and without deaf disability) can be established basing on scientific criteria. However, the data of body and functional capacities are still missing, as well as game indicators’ change during three successive World Championships in the scientific studies, dealing with deaf basketball players’ preparation and analyzing their game. The aim of this study was to establish and to evaluate body and functional capacities of the World Champions of 2015, Lithuanian deaf basketball national team players, to provide analysis of their game indicators in the World Championship and to compare them with analogous indices of Lithuanian national team players, who participated in 2007 and 2011 World Championships. Organization and methods of the study. 12 Lithuanian deaf basketball team members, having participated in the 4th World Deaf Basketball Championship in 2015, compiled the group of the investigated. The research on their body and functional capacities was carried out before the championship, while their game activity observation was performed during the championship. Single muscle contraction power (SMCP), anaerobic alactic muscle power (AAMP), psychomotoric reaction time (PRT) and agility were measured. During the research, the test of 5x6 s duration repeated anaerobic alactic work test was carried out. According to decrease of power after each load, percent fatigue index used to be established. Systemic analysis method was applied to perform analysis of Lithuanian deaf basketball national team players’ comparative analysis of 14 game actions during each match of the World Championship, using official records of FIBA. Effectiveness of Lithuanian deaf basketball national team players’ individual play actions in World Championships was given evaluation by Furukawa index. Mathematical statistics methods were applied for the research data analysis. As the research results demonstrated, body development and its capacity of Lithuanian deaf basketball players’ team, which participated in 2015 World Deaf Basketball Championship, was favorable for meeting the requirements raised for contemporary basketball players in technical and tactical aspects, and led to winning the World Championship for three times. In 2015, same to the earlier championships, Lithuanian deaf basketball players exposed well developed muscle and appropriate level of body capacity, their aerobic capacity improved a lot, too. This allowed them to demonstrate perfect game and to win gold medals. Comparative analysis of Lithuanian deaf basketball team’s game indices showed that victory in 2015 championship was conditioned by greater number of successful game actions, the main of them being more precision in three-points, greater number of defensive, offensive rebounds, assists and fast breaks during the game, as well as less number of the players’ turnovers and fouls. Keywords: deaf basketball players, World Championship, body and functional capacities, game actions. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/sm.2015.32