Effects of Offense, Defense, and Ball Possession on Mobility Performance in Wheelchair Basketball.

The aim of this study was to determine to what extent mobility performance is influenced by offensive or defensive situations and ball possession and to what extent these actions are different for the field positions. From video analysis, the relative duration of the various wheelchair movements during team offense/defense and individual ball possession was compared in 56 elite wheelchair basketball players. A two-way analysis of variance indicated that during offense, the guards and forwards performed longer driving forward than during defense. Overall, centers stood still longer during offense than during defense. Without ball, centers performed driving forward longer than with ball possession. It is concluded that offense, defense, and ball possession influenced mobility performance for the different field positions. These differences can be used to design specific training protocols. Furthermore, field positions require potentially different specific wheelchair configurations to improve performance.