Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to study the effects of the supplementary training with Tai-Chi on general motor ability, concentration and shooting accuracy of Thai national youth shooter and also to study the relationship between those variables and the shooting accuracy. The subjects were 8 Thai national youth rifle shooters; 4 males and 4 females, aged between 15-19 years old, sampled by purposive random sampling. The subjects were trained with Tai-Chi and the regular shooting training 3 times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 8 weeks. The researcher measured shooting accuracy, Heart Rate Variability (HRV), blood flow, vital capacity, hand-eye coordination, reaction time, body balance, flexibility and grip strength both before and after 8 weeks of training. The results were statistically analyzed by Mean, S.D, t-test and Pearson product moment correlation coefficient. The experiment was employed to determine the significant difference at the .05 level. Research results indicated that : 1. After 8 weeks of the experiment, shooters who trained with Tai-Chi and the regular shooting training showed significant decrease in reaction time and significant increase in body balance and flexibility at the 0.05 level. 2. After 8 weeks of the experiment, shooters who trained with Tai-Chi and the regular shooting training showed no significant decrease of HF and LF/HF ratio in heart rate variability (HRV). 3. There were no correlation coefficients between LF, HF, LF/HF ratio, blood flow, vital capacity, hand-eye coordination, reaction time, body balance, flexibility, grip strength and shooting accuracy.