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The immediate effects of cognitive intervention during treadmill running on balance and gait performance in male and female basketball players

Poster Session E - Monday, March 9, 2026, 2:30 – 4:30 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Yi-Jia Lin¹ (), Xin-Cen Wen¹, Viktoria Azoidou², Wei-Chun Hsu¹; ¹National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, ²Wolfson Institute of Preventive Neurology

Basketball involves diverse movement skills and varying intensities, requiring players to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, stop and change direction to perform jumping, shooting, and passing. Given that basketball athletes routinely face simultaneous physical and cognitive demands during play, this study aims to examine the immediate effects of cognitive and physical interventions on static balance and gait performance in basketball players. This study recruited six female basketball players (age 20.7 ± 1.6 years) and six male basketball players (age 20.0 ± 0.9 years). The testing protocol included a 20 minutes high-intensity interval (HIIT) running intervention with cognitive dual tasks. Balance and cognitive performance were assessed by using BESS and CANTAB, respectively. To examine the interaction between time (pre- and post-intervention) and group (male and female), a two-way mixed-design ANOVA was conducted with significance level set at α = 0.05. After HIIT running with cognitive dual tasks, the executive function in terms of Mean Latency to First Choice (p<0.001) became better in both male and female groups, while Mean Latency to Correct wasimproved only in the female players (p = 0.001). There is no difference in balance test between sex. Taken together, the results suggest that while acute high-intensity exercise coupled with cognitive engagement may transiently enhance certain executive functions, it may concurrently deteriorate motor control and balance. These findings highlight the importance of task specificity and sex-related factors when designing combined cognitive-motor interventions or training protocols.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control