Characterization of the Somatotype in Taekwondo: Systematic Review

Abstract

The Taekwondo, as in other sports, athletes who have certain physical characteristics have an advantage over their opponents, in this sense, success in the practice of taekwondo requires certain types of physical, physiological, psychological and social capacities, so those athletes whose characteristics anthropometric are favorable to them, they may be benefited over others. This is why we set ourselves the objective of reviewing the information regarding the somatotype presented by athletes who practice taekwondo. A Systematic Review of the databases "PubMed", "SportDiscus", "Scopus", "ScienceDirect", "ProQuest", "Dialnet" and "SciELO" was carried out using in the search criteria Boolean operators and keywords of the following way: ("taekwondo" OR "karate" OR "martial arts" OR "judo" OR "mixed martial arts") AND ("somatotype" OR "body composition" OR "anthropometry"). A total of 15 works were obtained to carry out the analysis, the total sample of these studies adds up to 826 athletes, with a mean age of 20.4 ± 1.76 years. Varied results were found, depending on the competitive level, the country and the weight category, but there was a certain trend towards outstanding values of the mesomorphic component and of the ectomorphy in men, in contrast, for the female sex, although fewer studies were found to analyze, a trend towards a central somatotypic classification was evidenced. The study of body composition and somatotype is just one of the many factors to take into account when carrying out the analysis of an athlete or a group of athletes, however, this may be the starting point to be able to identify potential talents in this sport.

Anthropometric Somatotype of Indian Combat Sports and Track and Field Athletes: A Systematic Review

“…Consequently, a multitude of recent studies focusing on the somatotyping of female athletes have been conducted and published by various researchers (Luthra et al 2021 This discernible pattern of gender disparity in sports research is consistent with findings from a systematic review on gender inequalities in sports medicine research by Paul et al (2023), who reported a similar imbalance between male and female subjects. Additional review articles on sports research by Shahidi et al (2023) in ball sports and Pena-Sanchez et al (2022) in taekwondo have also highlighted comparable patterns of gender disparity. Therefore, it is evident that this issue is not confined solely to India but is a global phenomenon.…”

“…More recently, various researchers have undertaken short reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses on the somatotypes of athletes in diverse fields. For instance, Rakovick et al (2015) gave a systematic analysis of elite athletes' somatotype, Sterkowicz-Przybycien et al (2012) focussed on judokas, Sterkowicz-Przybycien and Gualdi-Russo (2019) reported a metanalysis on gymnasts, while Pena-Sanchez et al (2022) conducted a systematic review explicitly addressing on somatotypes of taekwondo players.…”

Dominant Somatotype Development in Relation to Body Composition and Dietary Macronutrient Intake among High-Performance Athletes in Water, Cycling and Combat Sports

“…Considering that the scientific literature reveals a diverse approach to the potential impact of somatotypes on success in sport, it is also known that predisposition is only one of the components which, together with other factors such as the training process, nutritional status, psychological preparation, plays a key role in a successful career of athletes meaning 'an athlete is born and created' [20]. Although it is obvious that an anthropometric profile may refer to the athletes' suitability to engage in high-performance sport [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33], there is an existing research gap in explaining the relationship between the body composition profile, nutritional status and the quantified expression of the morphological conformation in elite athletes. Therefore, the transition between somatotypes and their practical implications in sports should be explored at a more advanced level.…”