Investigation of the Immediate Effect of IASTM on Some Parameters in E-Sports Players

Due to the nature of competitive sports, frequent and regular training by e-sports players to increase their performance provides e-athletes with success in the field, but it also increases the time spent in front of the screen. It is known that e-athletes train for an average of 5.5 to 10 hours per day. Therefore, sedentary behavior that develops due to screens is an issue that e-athletes should be careful about. While reasons such as disrupted sleep patterns, increased stress levels and mood changes experienced in the game following increased screen time negatively affect cardiovascular and metabolic health, the fact that e-sports do not require any physical effort also negatively affects the e-sports player's muscular activation. Due to the reasons mentioned, e-sports can cause chronic diseases in the long term. The process from the presence of a stimulus to the execution of the action that will occur following the stimulus is called reaction time. Reaction time can also be described as the value taken when a stimulus exceeds the threshold value, when movement is released or at the beginning of the explosive response. Reaction time consists of stages. The process, which starts with the transmission of the sensory stimulus through the receptors, establishes a perceptual link with the motor response and decides to produce a reactive response, and ends with the process of producing a movement that requires muscular force in the perceptual process. In studies conducted on e-sports players, the most common complaints resulting from long training periods are vision problems and eye fatigue, followed by pain experienced especially in the back, neck and wrist areas. E-sports players perform with poor posture compared to traditional athletes. Games played on mobile phones, especially computer-based games, cause changes in the structure of the spine, pain complaints, movement limitations, and loss of stability and balance. It is argued that the main reason for the pain experienced by approximately half of the players is the anterior displacement of the head due to the prolonged static position spent in front of the screen after a certain number of minutes and the pains brought about by muscle strength imbalances. To our knowledge, there is no study in the literature that investigates the immediate effect of a myofascial release technique applied to university student e-sports players on hand reaction time, neck pain and cervical joint position sense parameters. The aim of this study is to investigate the instantaneous effect of a myofascial release technique, the Graston Technique, on hand reaction time, neck pain and cervical joint position sense in university student e-sports players. Our study is valuable in this respect.