The relation between selected anthropometric variables and the sports results of early pubescent swimmers

Abstract

Background: Relations between anthropometric parameters and sports results in swimming are well documented, but only few studies concern young athletes. Scientific evidence do not indicate definitely, which anthropometric variables determine swimming performance among pubertal athletes. Material and methods: Forty one swimmers at the mean age of 12.2 years (including 15 females) were examined. Body composition was assessed by Tanita BC 545N device. Body height, hand length, hand width and arm span were also determined. Anthropometric data were compared to results of 50 m freestyle and 200 m individual medley. Results: Calculations made by Pearson's coefficient revealed significant liaisons between body height, arm span and hand length towards freestyle results. Relationships between anthropometric measurements and 200 m individual medley results were essential only in boys. The other variables showed week and insignificant correlations with sports results.Conclusions: Results of our study suggest that in early adolescence body height and upper limb dimensions affect swimming performance much more than body composition.

Analogical and Diversification of Anthropometric and Motor Performance Characteristics among Female Universities Soccer Players in Ghana

“…All the female soccer players were having relatively the same chest girth and mean finger span. The probable implication for this equality could be that the players had identical advantages in activities related to chest girth in soccer playing such as trapping the ball with the chest, blocking the opponent, and front charging which agreed with earlier studies [30][31][32] but less than average individual which is required for female soccer game as stipulated [19,20]. Female Universities Soccer Players in Ghana…”

Young Swimmers' Anthropometrics, Biomechanics, Energetics, and Efficiency as Underlying Performance Factors: A Systematic Narrative Review

“…Researchers are prone to assess the anthropometrics of young swimmers of both sexes, because these features play one of the major roles in the swimming performance, kinematics, energetics, and efficiency (Geladas et al, 2005 ; Jürimäe et al, 2007 ; Lätt et al, 2009a ), in addition to hydrodynamics (Kjendlie and Stallman, 2008 ; Barbosa et al, 2014 ). Cross-sectional studies showed that variables such as height (H), arm span (AS), and hand length (HL) are strongly and positively correlated to Freestyle sprint performance (i.e., 50 or 100 m) (Geladas et al, 2005 ; Morais et al, 2012 ; Bielec and Jurak, 2019 ). The same trend was verified in breaststroke, in which swimmers with longer upper-limb lengths and wider girths had a significant advantage (i.e., better performance in the 100 m) (Sammoud et al, 2018 ).…”

The Relationship Between Anthropometric Variables and Swimming Efficiency in Early Pubescent Female Front Crawl Swimmers

“…On a sample of 12-year-old swimmers, Geladas et al (2005), found significant correlations between competitive performance in the 100 m crawl in boys with body mass (r=0.65), chest circumference (r=0.61), arm span (r=0.64), body vision (r=0.61), biacromial diameter (r=0.61), biiliac diameter (r=0.46) and in girls with body height (r=0.31), arm span (r=0.30), but no significant correlations were found with the amount of subcutaneous fat in either boys or girls. Bielec et al (2019), in their research determined a significant correlation between the results of the 50 m crawl and body height (r=0.60), arm length (r=0.52), arm span (r=0.52) in girls of early puberty age (12.1 ± 0.5). In the study of Lat et al (2010), anthropometrical factors explain 45 % of the variance in 100 m swimming performance on the 25 adolescent male swimmers (15.2 ± 1.9 years).…”

“…Research has established that certain morphological characteristics are significantly related to competitive performance in swimming (Jürimäe et al, 2007;Senel et al, 2017). Significant correlations between anthropometric indicators and competitive results among swimmers were recorded in the studies of many authors (Keskinen et al, 1989;Pelayo et al, 1996;Strazala et al, 2005;Jürimäe et al, 2007, Bielec et al, 2019. On a sample of 12-year-old swimmers, Geladas et al (2005), found significant correlations between competitive performance in the 100 m crawl in boys with body mass (r=0.65), chest circumference (r=0.61), arm span (r=0.64), body vision (r=0.61), biacromial diameter (r=0.61), biiliac diameter (r=0.46) and in girls with body height (r=0.31), arm span (r=0.30), but no significant correlations were found with the amount of subcutaneous fat in either boys or girls.…”