🏓 Enhancing Table Tennis Training with Exergames! 🎮

Traditional table tennis training can be long, tedious, and error-prone without proper coaching. To address this, our study introduces an exergame designed to:

✅ Boost muscle memory for young novice players 💪
✅ Make practice more engaging through interactive gameplay 🎮
✅ Reduce training errors by guiding correct shadow play techniques 🏓

How It Works:
🔹 Uses skeleton tracking and a virtual avatar to support proper forehand drive technique
🔹 Allows shadow practice without needing a coach
🔹 Encourages correct technique adoption from an early stage

Study Details:
👧 Participants: 44 schoolgirls (ages 8-12) with no prior table tennis experience
📊 Method: Divided into control and experimental groups
📈 Evaluation:

Stroke skills tested via Mott-Lockhart test
Forehand drive errors measured with a ball machine
Pretest, post-test, and follow-up tests (10 days later)
Key Findings:
📌 The experimental group showed significant improvement in both short and long-term learning, while the control group improved only in the short term.
📌 Greater improvement was observed in the experimental group, indicating the effectiveness of exergames in promoting correct training techniques.

💡 Impact: Given the importance of early-stage learning, especially for young female athletes, this method provides a valuable tool for improving training quality and reducing incorrect technique internalization.

📄 Read the Full Paper:
🔗 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10316510

📌 Citation:
Farzinnejad, F., Rasti, J., Khezrian, N., & Grubert, J. (2023, October).
The Effect of an Exergame on the Shadow Play Skill Based on Muscle Memory for Young Female Participants: The Case of Forehand Drive in Table Tennis.
In 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) (pp. 1152-1160). IEEE.

#Exergame #TableTennis #VRTraining #SportsTech #MuscleMemory #SportsScience #Gamification #EdTech #STEM #AthleteDevelopment 🚀🏓