Influence of Instruction on Velocity and Accuracy of Overarm Throwing

2003/04/01 by Roland van den Tillaar, Gertjan Ettema

paper · doi:10.2466/pms.2003.96.2.423

crossref issued 2003/04/01 · crossref published 2003/04/01 · crossref published-online 2003/04/01 · crossref published-print 2003/04/01 · crossref created 2011/08/31 · crossref deposited 2026/05/01 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of instruction on the ball velocity and accuracy of a goal-directed overarm throw. 9 experienced Norwegian male team handball players executed a throwing task randomly seven times under 5 different instructions varying from emphasizing speed to accuracy. When instructions increasingly emphasized accuracy, velocity decreased. However, accuracy did not improve when subjects were instructed to focus on it. A possible explanation for this finding could lie in the specific subject group. The subjects were highly experienced team handball players with an average of 12 years in the sport. Thus, the accuracy they demonstrated at high velocity might actually be already extremely high and difficult to improve upon when reducing throwing velocity. Further, the velocity of throwing when instruction emphasized accuracy was approximately 85% of the maximal velocity, indicating that experienced team handball players are trained to throw accurately at relatively high velocity.

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