ORIGINAL

Abstract

Athletes are frequently seen preparing for a goal-oriented movement by enacting a movement we commonly refer to as a practice throw or swing. Although these movements are a widely used technique in sports, the effect of such movements has not yet been thoroughly investigated, especially with the absence of visual feedback. The current study will use virtual reality technology to explore whether feedback-less practice movements impact the accuracy of a cornhole toss. To test this, 46 subjects were divided into three groups with varying feedback schedules (No Practice, Practice - No Feedback, and Practice - Feedback). All groups completed 160 trials of both Near and Far target distances, with each trial including a final toss that was used to compare accuracy across groups. Subjects who received practice tosses with feedback outperformed all groups and subjects who received feedback-less practice tosses outperformed those with no practice tosses. These results indicate that accuracy improved as a function of practice and feedback but decreased as a function of target distance. To our surprise, precision decreased as a function of practice and feedback, as the No Practice group had the highest precision. These results suggest the use of cognitive strategies when planning the abstract kinematics of the movement, varying based on the given feedback schedule. This calls for further exploratory analysis using the collected kinematic data.