ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Sports Coaching: Performance and Development
This article is part of the Research TopicInvestigating VR in Sports Training: Cognitive and Performance ImpactsView all 7 articles
Effects of Age and Arm Movement Condition on Dynamic Balance Performance During Virtual Height Exposure
Provisionally accepted
- 1Division of Movement and Training Sciences/Biomechanics of Sport, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
- 2University of Leicester School of Psychology and Vision Sciences, Leicester, United Kingdom
- 3Institute of Sport Science, Saarland University, Saarbruecken, Germany
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Introduction: Dynamic balance performance during natural height exposure is affected by age and by arm movement condition. However, it remains unclear whether these effects persist during virtual height exposure. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of age and arm movement condition during virtual height exposure. Methods: A sample of 39 children (11.0 ± 0.5 years), 40 adolescents (14.4 ± 0.6 years), and 43 young adults (23.6 ± 3.6 years) performed two balancing trials (one with free and one with restricted arm movements) in a randomized order during virtual height exposure. The duration (s) taken to complete the forward and backward traversal of the beam was recorded for analysis. Additionally, perceptual outcomes (i.e., instability, task difficulty, fear of falling, conscious balance processing), presence, and virtual reality sickness were assessed after each trial. Results: There were no significant (all p > .05) effects of arm condition and no arm by age group interaction effects. Significant effects of age group were found for the total (p <. 01, Cohen's d = .48) and the backward balancing time (p <. 01, Cohen's d = .57), where children took significantly longer than adolescents. Young adults reported significantly greater task difficulty (p < .01, Cohen's d = .59) and stronger involvement (p < .01, Cohen's d = .72) than adolescents. All variables were also analyzed according to trial number (i.e., first vs. second), revealing that -irrespective of arm condition-all measures significantly (all p < .05) improved from the first to the second trial. Significant trial by age group interactions (all p < .05, ηp² = .06-.11) indicated that compared to adolescents and young adults, children took longer to cross the beam during the first trial. Discussion: The present findings suggest that participants quickly habituated to the VR environment, which may have masked potential benefits of free arm movement during dynamic balancing. Results on the effects of age are in contrast to those from studies using actual height elevations, highlighting the need for further studies on the effects of VR on balance performance and perceptual outcomes.
Keywords: virtual reality, Balance performance, postural threat, arm movement, Children, adolescents, Young adults (18-29 years)
Received: 15 Sep 2025; Accepted: 12 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Schedler, Hill, Leinen and Muehlbauer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Simon Schedler, simon.schedler@uni-due.de
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