ANTHROPOMETRIC MEASUREMENTS, BODY COMPOSITION AND SOMATOTYPING OF HIGH JUMPERS

Abstract

"SINGH, S.; SINGH, K.; SINGH, M. Anthropometric measurements, body composition and somatotyping of high jumpers. Brazilian Journal of Biomotricity, v. 4, n. 4, p. 266-271, 2010. The purpose of this study was to find out anthropometric measurements, body composition and somatotyping differences in high performer and low performer high jumpers. 20 male university level high jumpers were assessed for the present study during the All India Inter University Athletic Meet. The age of athletes was between 18 to 25 years. All subjects were assessed for height, weight, breadths, girths and skinfold thickness. Percentage of fat wascalculated from the sum of 4 measurements of skinfold thickness. The independent samples t-test revealed that in high performer high jumpers had significantly higher height (p<0.01), weight (p<0.01), body mass index (p<0.05), total leg length (p<0.01), total arm length (p<0.01) as compared to low performer high jumpers. The high performer high jumpers also had significantly greater all three circumferences, bi-humerus (p<0.01) and bi-femur (p<0.01) diameters, lean body mass (p<0.01) and mesomorphic score (p<0.01) as compared to low performers whereas the low performer high jumpers were found to have significantly higher% body fat (p<0.05) and endomorphic (p<0.01) score than the high performers. It is concluded that in most of the parameters there were significant differences between high performer and low performer high jumpers, and the high performer athletes showed better anthropometric measurements and somatotyping scores."