EFFECTS OF A TEAMWORK INTERVENTION ON VOLLEYBALL-SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE: A RANDOMIZED TRIAL

Abstract

Interventions based on teamwork have been receiving the growing interest of sport psychology as means of increasing attentional regulation, emotional regulation, and stability of performance in the presence of competition. This paper has discussed the impact of an eight-week team-based intervention on technical performance of university level female volleyball players on volleyball specific performance. Randomly chosen were twenty-eight volleyball players between the ages of 18-22 years (n = 14) who were exposed to experimental group, with 14 players who received 30-35 minutes of teamwork intervention per day followed by regular volleyball training, or control group with 14 players who only received regular volleyball training. The load during training was normalized to groups and observed to ensure homogeneity. The performance in volleyball was measured prior to and after the intervention using the standardized skill test battery, which comprised of forearm pass, overhead pass, serve, spike, and block accuracy measures. The experimental group showed much more improvements in the overall technical performance than the control group. The greatest improvement in performance was recorded in serves and spike accuracy. The findings show that teamwork-based training can be used as a complementary method of training in volleyball, particularly in technical and physical training, to facilitate skill performance and consistency in the field.