Tennis Ball Exersice: Variation to Increase Arm Muscle Strength in Martial Athletes at Sriwijaya State Sports School

Abstract

Strength is one of the biomotor components as the foundation to support technical ability in martial arts. To prove the effectiveness of arm muscle strength training using tennis in martial arts athletes at the Sriwijaya State Sports School was the purpose of this study. The experimental method with a pretest-posttest control group design was used. The experimental group (E G) performed arm muscle strength training using tennis balls with a frequency of 6 times a week for 1 month. The control group (C G) did arm muscle strength training by means of push-up only without using variations of movement or (conventional) equipment with the same frequency as the experimental group. The subjects in this study were 50 martial arts athletes aged 14-17 years which consisted of 10 pencak silat athletes, 7 judo athletes, 9 taekwondo athletes, 7 karate athletes, 10 wrestling athletes and 7 wushu athletes, separated into 2 groups, E G (n=25) and C G (n=25).The instruments used in the study were: 1 minute push-up assisted by the Fikri Muscle Strength Test application. Data analysis in this study used the statistical method paired sample t-test and independent sample t-test using SPSS 21 to see the effectiveness of arm muscle strength training using a tennis ball. The results of data analysis showed that there was a higher increase in the E G than the C G with the mean difference in push-up data of 3.84. The findings of this study are that the exercise variation developed is more effective than conventional exercise and the developed test instrument can help to calculate the results of the push-up test.