Somatotiperingsprofiele van manlike en vroulike Suid-Afrikaanse kruipslagswemmers

Abstract

The first aim of this study was to determine the somatotype profiles of 16 South African male ( X =18.96±3.28 years) and 10 South African female swimmers ( X =17.00±2.34 years) who finished in the 10 top places in the different crawl stroke events at the South African Swimming Championships of 2001. The second aim of this study was to compare the somatotype profiles of South African swimmers with the profiles of 91 male ( X =21.30±3.01 years) and 64 female crawl swimmers ( X =19.6±29 years) who participated in the 1991 FINA World Championships of Swimming (Carter et al., 1994). The somatotype profiles of the swimmers were determined by making use of the Heath-Carter anthropometric somatotype method (Carter, 1996). The descriptive statistics were calculated, after which an independent test was used to determine the somatotype differences between the two groups of swimmers. The results showed that the male South African crawl swimmers had an average somatotype value of 2.2±0.6-4.4±0.9-3.3±1.0, compared with the international swimmers, who had an average value of 1.8±0.4-4.8±0.9-3.2±0.8. Endomorphy was the only variable that differed statistically significantly (p<0.01) between the two groups of swimmers. The average somatotypes were 3.3±0.7-3.3±0.9-3.1±1.1 and 2.8±0.7-3.7±0.9-3.2±0.9 for the South African and international female crawl swimmers respectively. Analysis of the separate somatotype components showed that the South African swimmers were significantly higher (p<0.05) in endomorphy than the international swimmers. The international swimmers of both genders had higher mesomorph and smaller endomorph values, compared with the South African swimmers. The conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that South African senior male crawl swimmers fall into the ectomorphic mesomorph somatotype category, which is exactly the same as the somatotype category of their international peers. The South African female crawl swimmers have a central somatotype, which differs from the international swimmers, who fall into the balanced mesomorph somatotype category.


(S. African J. for Research in Sport, Physical Ed. and Recreation: 2002 24 (2): 1-12)