Does the reaction time to visual stimuli contribute to performance in judo?

Background & Study Aim: Previous studies suggest the choice reaction time to visual stimuli is very important in practice of judo and can be improved by training. The aim of this study is the contribution to the performance in judo of simple and choice reaction time to visual stimuli, to the upper limbs and also to identify the differences between the populations, because we consider that acoustic, vestibular, tactile and kinaesthetic stimuli could also be involved in making quick decisions during the judo fights. Material & methods: We used a total of 28 male subjects, aged 18-25, taken from two groups respectively. The first group (control) was composed of 20 students in physical education and sport (group 1), the second group was composed of 8 athletes practicing judo with great experience (group 2). The method used allows indirect measurement of reaction time. Results: The simple reaction time has similar values to all the research groups (238.79 +/- 6.8 ms to group 1 and 233.6 +/- 5.0 ms to group 2). Also, the choice reaction time to group 2 (404.19 +/- 11.0 ms at the dominant hand and 409.0 +/- 13.6 ms at the non-dominant hand) is not significantly lower (p>0.05) as compared to group 1 (421.34 +/- 9.5 ms and 425.9 +/- 10.2 ms). We also have not found significant differences between the dominant and non-dominant hands (p>0.05). Conclusions: The results of the study are probably due to the specific training and competition within judo, where the visual receptors probably have not an essential contribution to performance.