A New Valid And Reliable Repeated Reactive Test For Table Tennis Players

Table tennis (TT) performance is characterized by high processing speed, quick reactions, and multidirectional movement patterns. PURPOSE: To evaluate the validity and reliability of a new repeated reactive test for TT players. METHODS: Sixty experienced athletes (15-36 years) from TT (n = 15), combat sports ([CS] n = 15), team sports ([TS] n = 15), and track and field ([TF] n = 15) participated to the study. The test required to start from a central position and react to 10 visual stimuli randomly emitted from 3 devices positioned 3 m frontally. Participants had to perform a 1.5 m displacement to the right, left, or forward until reaching a timing gate, according to stimulus presentation. The test was conducted with both hands (B) and only one hand (O) under two different conditions: with consecutive stimulus presentation (C) and with a 0.8 s delay among stimuli (D). The delay was set to mimic the time between shots in a single rally. Three trials for each condition for 3 days, separated by a 48-h resting period, were conducted. RESULTS: Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) demonstrated “excellent” reliability for delay conditions (ICCBD = 0.969; ICCOD = 0.961) and “good” reliability for consecutive conditions (ICCBC = 0.848; ICCOC = 0.833). Standard error of measurements (SEM) and coefficient of variation (CV) were lower for delay conditions (SEMBD = 0.25; SEMOD = 0.28; CVBD = 1.44%; CVOD = 1.45%) than consecutive conditions (SEMBC = 0.53; SEMOC = 0.58; CVBC = 4.93%; CVOC = 5.23%). Total time was significantly lower for TT players than other athletes in BD (TT vs. CS p < 0.001, d = 2.63; TT vs. TS p < 0.001, d = 1.45; TT vs. TF p = 0.005, d = 1.51), OD (TT vs. CS p < 0.001, d = 2.46; TT vs. TS p = 0.005, d = 1.23; TT vs. TF p = 0.022, d = 1.29), and BC (TT vs. CS p < 0.001, d = 2.03; TT vs. TS p = 0.025, d = 1.16; TT vs. TF p = 0.006, d = 1.50) condition. No differences (p = 0.193, d = 0.94) emerged for OC condition between TT and TS players. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed test demonstrated to be a valid and reliable tool to evaluate processing speed, reaction time, and quickness in TT players. The condition executed with delay and both hands showed a better test-retest reliability, absolute reliability, and discriminative validity between groups and could be applied at a large scale in TT players.