Effect of Life Kinetic exercises on fundamental motor skills with the MOBAK-3 test battery

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of regular Life Kinetic (LK) exercises on the development of basic motor skills in 3rd grade primary school children (age group 8-9 years). . Randomly selected participants were divided into two groups as experimental group (n= 112) and control group (n= 106). In the pre-test day, object movements (throwing, throwing and catching, bouncing, dribbling) and self-movements (balancing, rolling, rope skipping, moving variably) of all participants were measured with MOBAK-3 test battery. Experimental group performed LK exercises for 12 weeks, while the control group did not participate in these exercises. At the end of 12-weeks programme, on the post-test day, the MOBAK-3 test battery was re-applied to all participants to measure changes in fundamental movements skills and the results were compared with the results of the pre-test day. Significant differences were found between the bouncing scores of the control and experimental group before and after the LK exercises (p<0.05). Additionally statistically significant differences were found between the self-movement scores of the control and experimental groups after the LK exercises (p<0.05). However, there were not statistically significant difference in object and self movement between the control and experimental group according to gender (p>0.05). It was concluded that LK exercises had a positive effect on the total change scores of subject and object movements. This shows that LK exercises may improve children's motor competence and skill tendencies.