Body and Functional Capacity of Lithuanian Deaf Basketball Team Players and Characteristics of Game Indices

Abstract

Background. The  purpose  of  the  present  study  was  to  establish  and  evaluate body  capacity and  functional
capacity of Lithuanian deaf basketball national team players, 2013 Deaflympic champions, and to provide the data
analysis of the players’ participation in Deaflympic Games comparing it with the data of participation in the Games
of 2005 and 2009.
Deaflympic Games comparing it with the data of participation in the Games of 2005 and 2009.
Methods. The group of investigated persons included 12 Lithuanian deaf basketball national team members.
Basketball players’ body development, body and functional capacity testing was performed. Method of systemic
analysis was employed to perform comparative analysis of Lithuanian deaf basketball national team players’ game
indicators.
Results. The results of our research showed that body development and physical capacity indices of Lithuanian
deaf  basketball  national  team  players  who  participated  in  2013  Deaflympic  Games  allowed  accomplishing  the
technical and tactical requirements of contemporary basketball for players of such level. Lithuanian deaf basketball
national team members have demonstrated better results in muscle mass and reached higher physical capacities
comparing to those of the participants of the previous Games. This increase resulted in improved quality of the game
and for the first time becoming gold medals winners.
Conclusion. Comparative analysis of game indices of the teams having participated in various Games showed
that the majority of the competitive activity indices were better in 2013 Games in Sofia: field of goals precision was
49.2%, the high number of defensive rebounds and less turnovers during competitions allowed very effective fast  breaks.

Keywords: muscle power, body composition, psychomotor functions, agility game activity.