engleski

Morphological and physiological profile indicators of physical fitness in male tennis players aged 12, 14 and 16 years

The establishment of differences in certain morphological characteristics and aerobic energy supply ability among three age categories of Croatian male teenage tennis players was the aim of this cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 60 players classified into three categories by age: U12 (n=20 ; 12.1±0.4 years), U14 (n=20 ; 14.0±0.6 years) and U16 (n=20 ; 15.9±0.4 years). Nine morphological body measures were taken: body height ; body mass ; skinfolds of the back, upper arm, chest, abdomen, thigh, lower leg and suprailiocristal. Also, six variables of cardiopulmonary function were obtained using spirometry and spiroergometry testing. Basic statistical parameters were calculated and ANOVA was applied using Tukey’s post-hoc method. Statistically significant differences were obtained in the variable maximum treadmill speed (p<.01) and maximum treadmill speed at the anaerobic threshold (p<.01). Aerobic levels of the Croatian U12, U14 and U16 tennis players were in line with the requirements of high- performance tennis. The results indicated that the conducted physical conditioning and tennis- specific training programmes had a positive effect on the development of aerobic energy capacity indicators in the examined young tennis players. However, due to the age of subjects, the effect of dynamic processes of growth and maturation on the obtained results in the aerobic capacity test cannot be overlooked.

tennis ; younger age categories ; morphological characteristics ; cardiopulmonary ability ; aerobic endurance ; progressive all-out test ; boys ; teenagers ; oxygen consumption ; anaerobic threshold ; running speed

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