Original articles   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2001 June;41(2):256-62

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Somatotype, role and performance in elite volleyball players

Gualdi-Russo E., Zaccagni L.

From the Department of Experimental Evolutionistic Biology, Anthropology Section, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Background. The pur­pose of the ­present ­study was to exam­ine the impor­tance of the somat­o­met­ric com­po­nents of ­elite ­male and ­female vol­ley­ball ­players in rela­tion to ­their dif­fer­ent ­game ­roles and lev­els of per­for­mance.
Methods. Two hundred and thirty-four ­male ath­letes (­aged 24.7±4.4 ­years) and 244 ­female ath­letes (­aged 23.1±4.4 ­years) ­from the Italian A1 and A2 vol­ley­ball ­leagues under­went anthro­po­met­ric meas­ure­ments dur­ing the 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 sea­sons. Somatotypes ­were esti­mat­ed ­with the Heath-Carter meth­od.
Results. Marked sex­u­al dimor­phism in somat­o­type was ­observed in the ­total sam­ple. The aver­age somat­o­type for men was 2.2-4.2-3.2 (SD 0.7-0.9-0.9), and for wom­en it was 3.0-3.3-2.9 (SD 0.8-1.0-0.9). The somat­o­type was sig­nif­i­cant­ly dif­fer­ent in ­players at dif­fer­ent lev­els of per­for­mance (A1 vs A2 ­leagues), as it fol­lows: 2.1-4.1-3.3 (SD 0.6-0.8-0.7) vs 2.3-4.3-3.0 (SD 0.7-1.0-0.8) in ­males; 2.9-3.1-3.0 (SD 0.8-1.0-0.9) vs 3.1-3.5-2.7 (SD 0.8-0.9-0.8) in ­females. The somat­o­type was ­also sig­nif­i­cant­ly dif­fer­ent in ­players in dif­fer­ent ­roles. In ­male sex the ­mean somat­o­types for set­ters ­were 2.4-4.5-2.8 (SD 0.7-0.9-0.8), for cen­tres ­they ­were 2.0-4.0-3.5 (SD 0.6-1.0-0.8), for spik­ers ­they ­were 2.2-4.3-3.0 (SD 0.6-0.9-0.7), for oppo­sites ­they ­were 2.2-4.3-3.1 (SD 0.6-0.9-0.8). In ­female sex the ­mean somat­o­types for set­ters ­were 3.1-3.6-2.5 (SD 0.8-1.0-1.0), for cen­tres ­they ­were 2.8-3.1-3.1 (SD 0.8-0.9-0.7), for spik­ers ­they ­were 3.0-3.5-2.8 (SD 0.9-1.0-0.9) and for oppo­sites ­they ­were 3.0-3.2-3.0 (SD 0.7-0.9-0.8).
Conclusions. The phy­sique of ath­letes in the A1 ­league is char­ac­ter­ized by high­er ecto­mor­phy and low­er endo­mor­phy and mes­o­mor­phy. There is ­also a ­slight ten­den­cy of ­male ­players to a great­er homo­ge­ne­ity in somat­o­type with­in the ­group at the max­i­mum lev­el of per­for­mance. Moreover somat­o­type dif­fers in rela­tion to ­game ­role in vol­ley­ball ­players of ­both sex­es: the mes­o­mor­phic com­po­nent is max­i­mal in set­ters, ­while the ecto­mor­phic com­po­nent is max­i­mal in cen­tres.