Kazimierz Kochanowicz, Dr.Hab.
Andrzej Kochanowicz, Ph.D.
Academy of Physical Education and Sport, Gdansk, Poland

Key words: gymnastics, somatotype, sportsmanship, relationship, indicators, individualization, preparation.

Introduction. Elite gymnasts add in their programs new more and more effective elements, distinguished by both high complexity and elegance of execution. Apart from good motor skills, which are already visible at early phases of long-term training, this also requires from athletes a well-organized system of training process in general. The major factors influencing the effectiveness of athletes' training include not only the level of development of special motor skills and mental abilities, but also somatic symptoms of the involved that meet specific requirements of gymnastics [1, 2, 5].

As emphasized in professional literature, the level of development of these symptoms, skills and abilities exerts direct influence on the choice of means and methods of training athletes, and helps organize a personalized training process in accordance with the requirements of modern sport, and particularly of gymnastics [3, 6, 8, 9]. So specialists need to know about natural biological development of children's organisms and have specific knowledge of individualized approach in couching during improvement of athletes’ sports skills on particular gymnastic apparatus. In addition, it is necessary to consider that gymnastics refers to those sports which imply specific requirements to athletes’ somato-morphological characteristics at early training phases. [4, 7].

Apparently, in the context of all-around gymnastics, due to somato-morphological characteristics of gymnasts they can achieve the highest results only on a specific apparatus. It resulted in the appearance at the current stage of development of gymnastics of the category of athletes who focus in their special training on the improvement of their sports skills on a specific gymnastic apparatus.  So athletes can contend successfully for the champion’s title on international competitions, including Olympic Games. Graduate of our school of gymnastics Leszek Blanik - Beijing Olympic Champion in vault – is one of the representatives of this category of gymnasts. We assumed that by raising this question using the material of our publication we will be able to bring to notice the reasonability of organization of further studies aimed at improvement of the theory and methodology of individualization of training process by means of improvement of predictive modeling of potentialities of young athletes, basing on the objective evaluation of their somatic characteristics.

The purpose of the study was to describe the relationship between the indicators of somatotype and special fitness of gymnasts aged 11-12 years in specific gymnastic apparatus.

Materials and methods. A total of 28 gymnasts from Gdansk Specialized School of Gymnastics under the auspices of Academy of Physical Education and Sport were examined.

The gymnasts from this group started their specialized sports training at the age of 7-8 years. They have 4-5 years of experience. Annually, a set of somatic characteristics and special physical fitness and technical skills indicators were registered in the athletes at the beginning of the competitive cycle (Tables 1 and 2).

Special technical skills were evaluated during competitions by panels of judges and experts in conformity with the requirements of the Polish Gymnastics Federation.

The statistical analysis of the basic research material was performed by means of conventional methods of mathematical statistics. The relationship between somatic characteristics and technical skills indicators in the involved ones was studied by means of the Spearman's correlation method. The significance of differences of the mean values of increase in the results of somatic and technical indicators was determined using the Wilcoxon test.

Results. As seen from Tables, significant differences were registered in somatic characteristics of body height, width and mass of the involved in the context of developmental age within the annual cycle. Under the same conditions, significant differences were not detected in the rates of ontogenetic development in the somatotype indicators in accordance with the Rohrer’s index, BMI and in the shoulder to hip ratio.

Table 1. Changes in somatic characteristics of gymnasts at the stage of developmental age of 11-12 years (n=28)

Notes: *р<0,05; **p<0,01

This proved that changes in the somatic parameters of the involved did not cause significant typological changes in the general status of gymnasts at this phase of their biological development. Thus, for instance, at the age of 11 years the difference between the tallest and the shortest athletes was 7 cm (М=139,22±4,37). At the age of 12 years the difference between these athletes was the same (М=144,61±4,71). The mean increment in body height of the involved within the annual cycle was 5.39 cm, along with increase of their body mass by 3.4 kg (Table 1).

However, these indicators, including the Rohrer’s index, indicated the natural biological change in somatotype of the group of gymnasts in the athletic direction, which were in the lower limit of normal BMI. In the meantime, at the age of 11 years these gymnasts displayed significant individual differences in the results on specific gymnastic apparatus. For instance, during the horizontal bar and pommel horse exercises such differences were strongly pronounced by the age of 12. Despite individual differences in the gymnasts' results on specific gymnastic apparatus, a general trend of a pronounced increase in the level of sports skills within the annual training cycle was noted among all the gymnasts (Table 2).

Table 2. Changes in the special fitness indicators of gymnasts aged 11-12 years

Comments: *p<0,05;  **p<0,01

The study of the relationship between somatic characteristics and sports results of gymnasts revealed the dependence of the technical execution of key elements on the rate of development of specific somatic parameters - body height and hip width (Table 3).

Table 3. Relationship between somatic and technical competence of gymnasts within 12-month training cycle

Note: *p<0,05; **p<0,01

It is worth mentioning that the best indicators of technical skills by total points in all-around gymnastics were displayed by the gymnasts with lower rates of the increment in body height (Fig.).

Fig. Diagram of relationship between sports results and changes in height of gymnasts within annual cycle

However, there was no such tendency in artistic floor exercises. Neither there was determined the relationship between the indices of the increase in hip width and technical execution of horizontal bar exercises. A positive relationship was marked between leg length, shoulder to hip ratio and technique of artistic floor exercises, ring, horizontal bar exercises and in all-around gymnastics.

Discussion. Taking into account that training process is considered as a logical sequence of special tools and methods of training aimed at achieving sports results, the information obtained in our studies can be used for selection of children in a specialized school of gymnastics and orientation at the next phases of long-term training. Based on somatic parameters of the involved ones, the gymnasts' training process can be individualized. Thus, thanks to the modern trends in the development of gymnastics athletes of childhood age can be orientated not only in the direction of all-around gymnastics, but also for high achievements using specific gymnastic apparatus. The study materials can be used for an objective justification of the advisability of the narrow specialization of the ones who train on specific apparatus already at the early phases of long-term training.

References

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Corresponding author: andrejkochanowicz@o2.pl