An Examination of Grip Strength and Arm Angles of Elite Level of Tennis Players With Relation to Their Sports

Abstract

Aim: The purpose of this study is; to investigate the relationship between the grip strength and some of arm angles of university tennis players with the age of the sport and to investigate the effect of sporting age on grip strength performance. Material and Methods: 40 female and 50 male volunteer tennis players attending the Turkish Universities Tennis Championships organized in Marmaris in 2016 participated the research as subject. The grip strengths of the subjects were tested with three maximal repetitions with dominant and non-dominant hand with Takai brand hand dynamometer. In the analysis of the data, Pearson correlation statistic was used in relation to sport age and performance beside the descriptive statistics. Again, T test was used in binary comparisons and ANOVA was applied among the age groups. Findings: In the results, average sport ages of the subjects were determined as 10.8(4) for males and 6.7(3.6) for females. Mean dominant and non-dominant hand grip strengths were statistically significant (P <0.05) 38.9 (12) kg and 35.2 (11) kg for the all subjects respectively. Again, there was a significant (P <0.01) positive correlations between the age of the sport and the grip strength (r = dominant 0.59, r = non-dominant 0.50). On the other hand, there was a low correlation (r= 0.21) between the angle of elbow supination and sports ages. Conclusion: There is a significant increase in the grip strength of the athletes with the long ages of doing tennis sports and the existence of the relationship. This can be regarded as a sign that tennis is a sport, that tennis players have a positive influence on their grip strength development.