Comparison of Heart Rate Variability before and after a Table Tennis Match

Assessment of the intensity and attractiveness of physical exercise while playing table tennis in an immersive virtual environment depending on the game mode

BACKGROUND

It appears that active video games (AVGs) and training apps that allow for physical activity (PA) in immersive virtual reality (VR) may be useful for sports, health-enhancing PA, and physical education (PE). Therefore, research is needed to identify their potential.

OBJECTIVE

The study aimed to evaluate the intensity and attractiveness of exercise during table tennis (TT) training in VR in arcade and simulation modes and to assess the potential for using such exercises in health-enhancing PA, sport, and PE.

METHODS

The research used the Racket Fury: Table Tennis VR. Exercise intensity during TT training in VR was evaluated by heart rate (HR) monitoring and rating of perceived exertion (RPE 6-20). The effectiveness of short-term TT training in VR was estimated based on the user's performance in playing against an opponent with artificial intelligence (AI), satisfaction with playing TT was measured using the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES), and the potential usefulness of the tested app in PA, sport, and PE was assessed based on a questionnaire for participating PE teachers (30 participants).

RESULTS

PA intensity during TT training in VR expressed as a percentage of maximum heart rate (HRmax) was moderate but was significantly (p < 0.001; d=-0.830) higher in the easier arcade mode (69.50 ± 12.58%HRmax) than in the simulation mode (64.10 ± 9.67%HRmax). Despite the greater fatigue of respondents, user satisfaction was significantly higher in arcade mode. Users' performance when playing with AI was significantly better after 20 min of training in VR than before training. PE teachers recognize the great potential of the app.

CONCLUSIONS

The application tested is characterized by a beneficial PA intensity, with its level depending on the game mode. Facilitating strokes during a game of virtual TT promotes increased intensity of exercise and increased enjoyment of the PA. Short-term TT training in VR improves playing skills in a virtual environment. PE teachers spoke highly of the app and recognized the potential for using VR technology in PA, sports, and school PE.

How to reduce anxiety symptoms through individual sport in youth: A longitudinal study over 8-month observation

Background

Anxiety symptoms are widely observed among the youth, and engagement in sports has been demonstrated to mitigate these symptoms. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of specific sports and the potential moderating role of psychological factors, such as self-esteem and self-efficacy, on the influence of sports on anxiety, remains to be elucidated. This study was designed to longitudinally assess the impact of sports participation on anxiety symptoms among young individuals.

Methods

The study encompassed 163 university students, with a male predominance of 81.6%, and explored the influence of sport-related factors (such as mastery of table tennis skills, level and engagement) and psychological aspects (including self-efficacy, self-esteem and resilience) on anxiety symptoms, employing an 8-month longitudinal approach. Physical activity, sedentary and sleep behaviour, along with age, body mass index (BMI), and sex, were accounted for as confounding variables.

Results

The study found that high table tennis performance score was found to buffer the development of anxiety symptoms in students with decreased self-esteem in an exploratory moderation model. Self-esteem and self-efficacy were negatively associated with the development of anxiety symptoms, whereas physical activity factors did not have a direct effect.

Conclusion

This study highlights the potential of table tennis as a form of sport to alleviate anxiety symptoms in university students, particularly among those with decreased self-esteem. Future research should address the study's limitations and explore the potential moderating effects of other psychological factors. Overall, these findings suggest a potential new approach to treating anxiety symptoms among university students.

Systematic training of table tennis players' physical performance based on artificial intelligence technology and data fusion of sensing devices

This research emphasises the value of physical training for table tennis players, particularly as ball speed and spin rate decline and emphasises how important intensity quality is to the game. Chinese table tennis players' dual identities place greater demands on the general growth of their learning and training as a crucial component of talent development preparation. Athletes' general quality, competitive level, and ability to avoid sports injuries are all improved by scientific and focused physical training. In order to achieve the functions of intelligent camera, multi-angle broadcasting, and 3D scene reproduction, this study combines the physical training model of artificial intelligence. This gives the audience a more engaging and in-depth viewing experience. More feature extraction of the match footage is made possible by deep learning and convolutional neural networks when combined with large-scale video data, greatly enhancing the match information for viewers. The experimental findings demonstrate that the accuracy of table tennis human technical movement recognition reaches 98.88 % based on the enhanced AM-Softmax classification algorithm.

Physiological demands of racket sports: a systematic review

The practice of racket sports has had an exponential growth in the last decade, along with it, the scientific interest in researching the different disciplines: badminton, padel, table tennis, tennis, and squash. However, most research has focused on the technical and tactical field. Therefore, the aim of this review is to analyze and compare the indicators of the internal load of each sport: heart rate (HR), maximum oxygen consumption (VO_2max), oxygen consumption (VO₂), and lactate (LA) in order to reset physiological references to adjust the training of the players and also use these references to propose the practice of these sports for healthy purposes to the general population. PRISMA Guidelines for Systematic Review were used to search for articles that met the inclusion criteria in three databases: Web of Science, Pubmed, and Sportdiscus. The search was performed between January 2010, and September 2022. Finally, a total 27 records were included for analysis in this study. The main findings were related to the differences in the intensity rates between sports. The highest lactate concentrations and heart values were found in badminton in the intensity of effort values (whose highest values were found in badminton) 10.11 (±4.99) mmol/L and 182.6 (±2.7) bpm respectively, whereas table tennis showed the lowest ones 1.2 (± 0.4) mmol/L, and 103.99 (±15.09) bpm, respectively. The highest mean VO₂ was found in table tennis with a value of 36.8 (±13.2) ml/kg/min and the lowest in tennis with a value of 26.6 (±2.7) ml/kg/min. The highest VO_2max was found in tennis players 58.0 (±4.6) ml/kg/min, and the lowest value was in table tennis with a value of 42.9 (±4.2) ml/kg/min. Since most of the studies were carried out on elite men players, future research should focus on amateur and women level players.

METABOLISM AND PHYSICAL FITNESS CHARACTERISTICS IN TABLE TENNIS PLAYERS

ABSTRACT Introduction: The physical fitness of Chinese table tennis players is critical as the continuous development in sports technologies increases the demands for physical fitness during competitions. And the physical quality of table tennis players is a problem that cannot be ignored. Objective: Analyze the energy supply characteristics of table tennis and its special training methods based on the sport's temporal and spatial characteristics of the actual load. Methods: Sport performance is analyzed by the scoring system using video kinematic analysis, scientific literature research, and logical analysis methods. The research on energy supply in Chinese athletes according to the characteristics of the three energy metabolism systems is developed. Considering the different metabolic characteristics and physical content for a specific training protocol experiment. Results: Female table tennis players obtained significantly higher time, density, and hitting efficiency than male players (P<0.05). Table tennis is a sport that uses mainly aerobic energy, complemented by anaerobic exercises. Conclusion: Table tennis is a medium-intensity intermittent sport composed of short-term bursts with the ball and low-intensity activities without the ball. Competition in table tennis is based on aerobic energy delivery, with no oxygen-based movement. Athletes need to combine aerobic and anaerobic exercises during exercise. Level of evidence II; Therapeutic studies - investigation of treatment outcomes.

Heart Rate Response, Temporal Structure and the Stroke Technique Distribution in Table Tennis National Category Matches

The aims of this study were to analyze the heart rate response, the game temporal structure (i.e., mean total time of the matches, real playing time, total rest time) and the stroke technique distribution and to describe its relations in the table tennis national category in simulated competitions. A cohort of 60 table tennis male players (22.06 ± 8.32 years) played 30 simulated matches. The obtained results show a mean heart rate (HR_mean) of 142.69 ± 14.10 bpm and a peak heart rate (HR_peak) of 167.26 ± 16.51 bpm. Total strokes were 7505, being the 57.88% and 42.12% forehand and backhand strokes, respectively. The most frequent forehand strokes were service (SERV) (33.13%) and forward spin technique (SPIN) (40.75%) stroke types, with the left quadrant of the table away from the net (Z_5) (25%) and right quadrant of the table away from the net (Z_6) (20.72%) being the most frequent ball bouncing placements. Meanwhile, the most frequent backhand strokes were backspin technique (PUSH) (42.74%) and SPIN (31.86%) stroke types, with the intermediate left quadrant of the table (Z_3) (17.21%), Z_5 (31.22%) and Z_6 (18.54%) being the most frequent ball placements. The mean total time of the matches was 15.74 ± 3.82 min, the mean real playing time was 4.14 ± 1.47 min and the total rest time was 11.60 ± 2.67 min. Heart rate variables did not correlate significantly with the different stroke types or the game temporal variables (p > 0.05). However, stroke types and game temporal structure variables were significantly correlated (p < 0.01). This information can be useful to reveal players' strengths and weaknesses and prepare subsequent training sessions, adapting training sessions to the needs of the athletes.

Heart Rate Variability in Elite International ITF Junior Davis Cup Tennis Players

The aim of the present study was to investigate the evolution of the HRV during an international team tennis tournament in elite junior tennis players. A total of 11 tennis players, with a mean age of 15.36 (0.67) from six nationalities, participated in this cross-sectional study. Participants were measured one day before the event, before the first match, and before the second match of the ITF Junior Davis Cup event. Each of the registers lasted 5 min and the time domain, frequency domain and non-linear variables were extracted. The tournament took place in Valencia (Spain). Results showed that there was not a significant decrease in the heart rate variability (HRV) induced by precompetitive stress. However, significant differences (p-value < 0.05) were found between baseline and second match pre-competition HRV values in low frequency (LFNu) (p-value = 0.008) and high frequency (HFNu) power (p-value = 0.008), LF/HF ratio (p-value = 0.008) and Sample Entropy (SampEn) (p-value = 0.033) variables. Furthermore, cognitive anxiety (measured by CSAI-2r) (p-value = 0.017) and anxiety (measured by STAI-S) (p-value = 0.042) were higher before the first match than before the second match. Coaches and physical trainers could use HRV to control and manage the precompetitive anxiety of junior tennis players. The experience in international tournaments and the familiarization with the environment in the second match could explain these results.

Influence of Competition on Anxiety and Heart Rate Variability in Young Tennis Players

The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of competition on anxiety and heart rate variability (HRV) in tennis players. Thirty tennis players (15 boys and 15 girls) were included in the study. In boys, the mean age was 14.53 years, mean height was 169.20 cm and mean weight was 60.60 kg. In girls, the mean age was 13.60 years, mean height was 164.07 cm and mean weight was 53.33 kg. Competitive anxiety was measured using the Competitive Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) and the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). HRV was also analyzed using a validated HR chest band (Polar H7). These measurements were performed at two different times, before training and before competing, both times maintaining the same conditions for the participants. In addition, a gender differentiation was carried out. Somatic anxiety and state anxiety were significantly higher at the pre-competition time compared to the pre-training time (p < 0.05). On the contrary, the rest of the variables did not present significant differences between conditions (p > 0.05). On the other hand, no correlation was observed between anxiety and heart rate variability either before competition or before training. As for gender differentiation, significant differences were obtained between males and females in state anxiety and heart rate, identifying higher values in females.

Heart Rate Variability-Based Subjective Physical Fatigue Assessment

Accurate assessment of physical fatigue is crucial to preventing physical injury caused by excessive exercise, overtraining during daily exercise and professional sports training. However, as a subjective feeling of an individual, physical fatigue is difficult for others to objectively evaluate. Heart rate variability (HRV), which is derived from electrocardiograms (ECG) and controlled by the autonomic nervous system, has been demonstrated to be a promising indicator for physical fatigue estimation. In this paper, we propose a novel method for the automatic and objective classification of physical fatigue based on HRV. First, a total of 24 HRV features were calculated. Then, a feature selection method was proposed to remove useless features that have a low correlation with physical fatigue and redundant features that have a high correlation with the selected features. After feature selection, the best 11 features were selected and were finally used for physical fatigue classifying. Four machine learning algorithms were trained to classify fatigue using the selected features. The experimental results indicate that the model trained using the selected 11 features could classify physical fatigue with high accuracy. More importantly, these selected features could provide important information regarding the identification of physical fatigue.

Differences in Nervous Autonomic Control in Response to a Single Session of Exercise in Bodybuilders Using Anabolic Androgenic Steroids

Considering the role of autonomic nerve activity in blood pressure control, this study aimed to investigate the cardiac autonomic nerve responses after an aerobic exercise session in Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) users. Twenty men (AAS, n = 9; control group, n = 11) performed an aerobic exercise session (60 min, 70 to 80% of HR_max). Heart rate variability (HRV) was assessed before and during a 60-min post-exercise recovery period. RMSSD (root mean square successive difference of the RR intervals) and the LF/HF ratio (low frequency/high frequency spectra) were also evaluated. The Student's t-test for independent samples was used to compare differences between initial group characteristics. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare pre- and post-exercise HRV recovery (p < 0.05). AAS had a lower SDNN (standard deviation of the intervals) (40.8 ± 16.8 vs. 71.6 ± 24.7 ms; p = 0.04, d = 1.4) and a higher LF/HF (3.4 ± 2.1 vs. 1.8 ± 0.9%; p = 0.03, d = 0.9) before exercise. AAS and controls had similar RMSSD (14.0 ± 15.8 vs. 18.9 ± 12.1 ms; p = 0.20) and a LF/HF (2.8 ± 1.6 vs. 2.4 ± 1.2 ms; p = 0.41) immediately post-exercise. The between-groups comparison revealed a higher HF/LF at 30 min (4.3 ± 1.4 vs. 2.5 ± 1.3%; p = 0.008, d = 1.3) and 60 min (5.0 ± 2.2 vs. 2.3 ± 0.8%; p = 0.001, d = 1.6) for the AAS group in the recovery time. This study demonstrated impaired parasympathetic activity at rest and immediately after the exercise session as an adverse effect of AAS usage, but similar behavior regarding the restoration of sympathetic activity.