CONTENT ANALYSIS OF SOME DOCTORAL THESIS STUDIES CARRIED OUT IN TURKEY ON THE BRANCH OF TAEKWONDO IN THE FIELD OF SPORTS SCIENCES

Abstract

Taekwondo is an old martial art with a Korean origin that is performed with hands and feet, where several combined techniques are used together, and nerve-muscle use levels are high (Mark, 1984; Kim et al., 2011). The history of taekwondo may be traced back to centuries ago. Initially, this branch used to be taught for the person to defend themselves. Afterwards, throughout the centuries, it has been spread around the world as an artistic form. In addition to having an artistic form, the branch of taekwondo also requires high competitive strength. Taekwondo is a competitive sport that requires the displacement of the body parts of the opponent. As words, ‘tae’ means foot strike, ‘kwon’ means hand strike, and ‘do’ means philosophy (Kazemi et al., 2006). Taekwondo competitions are divided into two categories as sparring and poomsae. Sparring is performed against an opponent, while poomsae (imaginary sparring) is a branch where a single person performs. Taekwondo that is known as a demonstration sport showed itself for the first time in the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Its inclusion in official competitions occurred in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games (Kazemi et al., 2004; Gupta, 2011). Taekwondo as an Olympic sport is a branch performed by 75-120 million individuals in more than 140 countries (Razi, 2016). Innovations made in equipment in time, changes in rules, safety measures, organization of competitions, and its prominent media- and education-related aspects have increasingly raised the interest in this branch and helped it gain its popularity today. With the increase in the popularity of the branch and the prominence it has gained in the Olympics, World Taekwondo has recently made some changes in the rules. Some changes may be listed as changes in the scoring system (increase in the point score of techniques applied on the head region), smaller game dimensions, enaction of the 10-sec rule and changes in penalty points (Moenig, 2015). Competitions are held in the form of 3 rounds of 1.5 minutes each for the Juniors and Teens categories and 3 rounds of 2 minutes each for the Youths and Adults categories, with 1 minute of rest between the rounds (Birrer, 1996; Toskovic et al. 2004; Heller ve ark., 1998). Competitions consist of various techniques applied on the head and torso regions. These techniques may be applied in the form of attack, counterattack and combined techniques. Athletes are scored based on the region on which they apply the techniques and the degree of difficulty. For athletes to receive points, they need to have multiple physical qualities. For competitive performance, taekwondo requires various factors including physical (Heller ve ark., 1998; Gao, 2001; Melhim, 2001; Ball et al.,2011; Estevan et al., 2011), psychological (de Prado, 2012), technical (Bridge et al., 2011; Cular et al., 2011) and tactical (Falcó et al., 2009; González et al., 2011) factors. This is why taekwondo training has been structured in a way to target these specific performance mediators (Heller et al., 1998; Gao, 2001). From this perspective, the purpose of taekwondo training is to prepare athletes in terms of both their physical activities and meeting of the physiological demands of competition (Marković et al., 2005; Pieter, 1991; Casoline et al., 2012). As strikes are important in taekwondo, athletes need to have explosive leg strength, aerobic resilience, balance and flexibility (Heller et al., 1998; Marković et al., 2005). Taekwondo athletes must have the capacity to rapidly produce muscle strength through kicks, because 80% of taekwondo skills are related to kicking (Shirley, 1992). Although these characteristics are not the only determinants of performance, they are among helpful pieces of information for trainers. There are studies in the literature on the physical and physiological characteristics of athletes. Nevertheless, it is important to increase the number of these studies and select the suitable training method for this group of athletes.

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