Yasin, Mohd Nawawi
(2013)
Anthropometrical and physiological profile of
Malaysian University Swimmers.
Other.
Universiti Sains Malaysia.
(Submitted)
Abstract
Swimming belongs to one of the most prestigious Olympic sports. Belonging to Aquatics,
Swimming along with Diving, Water Polo and Synchronized Swimming, has one of the
largest medal hauls at stake in the Olympic Games. Swimming events include freestyle,
breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly, medleys and relays altogether counting a massive 34
sets of medals in the current Olympics programme. In the last two decades swimming turned
into highly scientific and sophisticated sport, with scientists from all fields of knowledge
contributing to the improvement of swimming performance. Swimmers’ physical
characteristics have been examined to determine the characteristics of successful sprint and
endurance swimmers (Smith et al., 2002) in order to assess the relative importance of specific
characteristics to performance. Although research into the anthropometry and physiology of
swimmers is substantial, no studies to date have been found analyzing anthropometrical and
physiological profile of Malaysian University swimmers. With all this in mind, MOHE-USM
Swimming Centre of Excellence initiated profiling of Malaysian University level swimmers
and development of locally applicable norms and standards. The purpose in this study was to
describe and compare anthropometrical profiles of male and female University swimmers,
and also analyze the differences between sprinters and middle and long distance swimmers
within the genders of Malaysian elite university swimmers. A convenience sample subjects were 11 males and 14 females from among three top finishers in the events of Kamival Sukan Majlis Sukan Universiti Malaysia (MASUM) in 2011. Data was collected through personal
particulars sheet and anthropometrical measurements including: height, weight, arms span,
sitting height, shoulder width, pelvic width and foot length. Among physiological variables
were: BM1, body fat percentage, grip strength for right and left hand. Descriptive statistics was performed to display means and standard deviation through both genders, type of event in
respect to swimming distance for both genders. The mean values of variables in height
(171.15 ± 4.58) , weight (65.13± 7.95) , arm span (177.10± 8.42), sitting height (88.74 ±
1.83), foot length (25.03 ± 1.26), shoulder width (41.15± 1.78), right hand grip (40.88 ± 7.18)
and left hand grip (39.06 ± 9.10), in males were significantly higher than in females except in
fat percentage (24.04 ± 2.77) where females were significantly higher in values than males,
whereas in BMI, and in pelvic width results were almost same between genders. There are
certain differences observed between sprint and middle & long distance among males, but
none of them occured to be statistically significant. Certain differences were observed
between sprint and middle & long distance swimmers in female section, but none of them
happened to be statistically significant.
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