Ionescu Elena
Ortansa, Gurau Anca Ileana
National Institute of
Sports
Medicine, Bucharest, Romania
Introduction.
Although theoretical the need of anthropometrical selection in football
is obvious, in practice we find more and more deviation from the
standard. The football player model is tall, robust, powerful and able
to face “the fight” in the field, where the risk of
injury is high.
Purpose.
The purpose of this study was to determinate the role of anthropometric
selection in young football players.
Material and
method.
Our study includes 488 young football players aged from 12 to 18 years,
who began to practice football at least 3 years prior to the study.
Anthropometric evaluation (height, weight, body composition, physical
qualities) were carried out on the occasion of their medical check up
in The National Institute of Sports Medicine during 2007.
Results.
Studying
the anthropometrical parameters at a total of 488 young football
players we found that 52.66% are tall, 46.72% are of medium height and
0.6% are under the media. Regarding the weight, 54.7% are under weight,
18% are normal weight and 25% are over weight. Analyzing the body
composition it shows that 55.94% have a proper lean body mass, 26.63%
have up to 2 kg less lean body mass and 17.41% have over 2 kg deficit
of lean body mass. Concerning the adipose tissue, 46.92% of the
subjects have appropriate percentiles, 42.62% presenting up to 2 kg
more body fat and 10.45% exceed the standards with more than 2 kg. We
found that 20.49% of the subjects are in the optimum recommended body
weight but from them as a whole only 78% have a proper lean body mass.
Off the total number of 488 cases 14.55% are over weight by a large
muscle bulk presenting low/normal level of body fat.
Conclusions.
The
growth status and the physical development, the body composition and
the optimum body weight should be closely monitored in young football
players.
A rigorous secondary selection is necessary after
3-4 years of football practice. Values close to the anthropometric
criteria are favorable for obtaining performance.
Key words: physical
development, anthropometrical selection, football player model.
