2013, Volume 9, Issue 1

Polish national cadet wrestling team for 2010 Youth Olympic Games Yog – social, somatic and psychological characteristics

Urszula Czerniak¹, Grzegorz Bręczewski², Alicja Kaiser³, Marek Sokołowski⁴, Maciej Tomczak<sup>2

1</sup>Department of Anthropology and Biometry, University School of Physical Education in Poznań, Poznań, Poland
²Department of Psychology, University School of Physical Education in Poznań, Poznań, Poland
³Department of Tourism, Wielkopolska Higher School of Tourism and Management in Poznań, Poznań, Poland
⁴Department of Methodology of Physical, University School of Physical Education in Poznań, Poznań, Poland

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Abstract

Background and Study Aim: The issue of selecting competitors for particular sports disciplines and the programming of the training process requires comprehensive evaluation of the athletes. The aim of the presented study is a many-sided description of social, somatic and psychological characteristics of wrestlers from the Polish National Cadet Team, in relation to the process of selection and programming a modern, interdisciplinary sport training.
Material and Methods: Twenty competitors took part in the research (10 girls and 10 boys - the members of the cadet national team taking part in the European Qualifications for Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games YOG). All the competitors underwent anthropometric examination with the aim of identifying their body build type, and tests using the EAS questionnaire allowing to assess temperamental features. Additionally, a questionnaire of the authors’ own design has been applied, containing inquiries about the competitors’ social situation and their background.
Results: For the majority of the participants, wrestling is the only discipline they have practised so far. The average period of practising wrestling is 5 years, and the period of the membership in the national team is 20 months. The majority of the surveyed wrestlers are young people at the age of 16. The observation of individual results in typological analysis indicates that the body build of the examined boys is marked by domination of the mesomorphic factor. In the examined girls, one can observe a definite domination of the mesomorphic, balanced meso-endomorphic and meso-ectomorphic types. As it appears from the comparative analysis of the examined female wrestlers’ temperaments with the temperaments of the members of general population, none of the differences achieved statistical significance on the level p=0,05.
Conclusions: When encouraging children and teenagers to take up sports training, one should bear in mind the influence of their social environment on their participation in physical culture. On the basis of typological analysis one can definitely corroborate the utility of body build types with considerable massiveness for sports. The results of psychological tests did not disclose any considerable differences in the temperamental development either between wrestlers and the general population or between female and male wrestlers practising this sports discipline.

Key words: sheldon’s somatotypology, emperamental features, ombat sport, ody build type