Anthropometric and physiological characteristics on Indian inter-university volleyball players

Abstract

The purpose of this study was of two-folds, firstly, to evaluate the anthropometric profile of Indian inter-university volleyball players and, secondly, to search the correlation of body mass index, % body fat, hand grip strength (right dominant) and Vo2max. with other anthropometric characteristics studied. Eleven anthropometric characteristics, four body composition parameters, two physical and two physiological variables and nine arm anthropometric characteristics were measured on randomly selected 63 inter-university Indian volleyball players (38 males and 25 females) aged 18–25 years from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab, India with adequate controls (n = 102, 52 males and 50 females). The results indicated that male volleyball players were taller (6.63%) and heavier (7.31%) and female volleyball players were slightly taller (0.31%) and lighter (3.74%) than their control counterparts. One way analysis of variance showed significant (p≤0.004-0.000) between group differences in all the variables (except hip circumference) between volleyball players and controls. In volley players, significantly positive correlations were found with BMI and other 19 variables, with percent body fat and 6 variables, with right hand grip strength and 20 variables and with Vo2max and other 19 variables, and significantly negative correlations were found with percent body fat and other 16 variables, with right hand grip strength and other 7 variables and with Vo2max with other 8 variables. The findings of the present study might be useful in future investigation on player selection, talent identification in volleyball and training program development.