SOMATOTYPES OF NATIONAL ELITE COMBATIVE SPORT ATHLETES

PIETER, W.; BERCADES, L. T. Somatotypes of National Elite Combative Sport Athletes. Brazilian Journal of Biomotricity, v. 3, n. 1, p. 21-30, 2009. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare the somatotypes of elite adult combative sport athletes. Subjects were members of the Philippine national senior teams in karate and pencak silat (30 men, 24.27 ± 4.66 years, 168.85 ± 5.09 cm, 64.88 ± 10.63 kg and 10 women, 20.33 ± 2.58 years, 158.65 ± 5.18 cm, 54.55 ± 7.06 kg) as well as fencing (6 women, 24.33 ± 3.72 years, 153.25 ± 6.04 cm, 54.25 ± 8.37 kg). The Heath-Carter somatotype method was used to assess the physiques of the athletes. To determine differences between combative sports groups, 1-way Anovas were used. The global somatotype analysis almost revealed a trivial difference in somatotype attitudinal mean (SAM) between karate and silat men (p = 0.056, eta2 = 0.211). There was no difference in SAM between elite and developmental silat athletes (p = 0.883, eta2 = 0.001). However, there was a trivial difference (eta2 = 0.226) in age between the two levels of competition (26.88 ± 2.03 years and 22.50 ± 5.40 years for the elite and developmental men, respectively) (p = 0.046).