THE EFFECT OF THE SPECIFIC TRAINING UPON THE VALUES OF THE CHOICE REACTION TIME AT THE LEVEL OF THE UPPER LIMBS IN THE LAWN TENNIS (16-18-YEAR- OLD)

The reaction time to visual stimuli is extremelyimportant in lawn tennis because the sportsmanhas to adopt in the shortest time possible theadequate motric response in order to get in time tothe ball as well as for hitting it with highefficiency. The purpose of this research isrepresented by the identification of the values ofthe choice reaction time to visual stimulus for thesuperior limbs for the sportspeople aged 16-18,members of the national lawn tennis team ofRomania. This study has as a starting point thehypothesis that these sportsmen have lower levelsof the choice reaction time at the dominant handas an adapting neuromuscular response to thetraining and competitions demands. This studyincludes 9 sportsmen and 9 sportswomen, aged 16and 18, members of the national lawn tennis teamof Romania. As a result of the run tests, wenoticed that these sportspeople do not have as amain feature an adapting neuromuscular responsematerialized in the shortening of the choicereaction time at the dominant hand. It is possiblethat some elite tennis players manage tocompensate the lower choice reaction speedeither through a higher anticipatory skills orthrough a higher movement speed or throughother components specific to this sport. As well,there were not noticed any statistically significantdifferences (p>0,05) between boys and girls.