THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ANTHROPOMETRY AND LEG FREQUENCY MOVEMENT IN THE EGGBEATER KICK UNDER EXTERNAL LOADS IN WATER POLO

Abstract

We intend to investigate whether specific anthropometric characteristics and/or frequency of leg movement are related to the water-polo players’ ability to resist external pressure during the eggbeater kick. Twenty-four male water-polo players participated in this study. Preliminarily, the participants’ anthropometric characteristics were measured. Thereafter, a 20-sec eggbeater kick test was conducted in order to determine the minimum load the participants could resist. On the day of the experiment, each participant performed the 20-sec eggbeater kick test, starting from 10 kg and thereafter with a progressive increase of 1 kg external load until peak external load (PEL) was reached. The external load the players could effectively resist before the failed effort was considered the PEL. Significant correlations between the majority of anthropometric characteristics and PEL were observed (r=0.38 to 0.62, P<0.05). Multiple regression analyses revealed that stature and body mass explained the total variance of PEL by 67% and 58% respectively (P<0.05), while frequency of leg movements were also significant predictors explaining more than 45% of PEL variance (P<0.05). The factor analysis showed that anthropometric characteristics and leg frequency movements totally explained 80.42% of the PEL variance. However, the multiple regression analysis based on scores from the factor analysis revealed that only anthropometric characteristics were significant predictors of PEL during the eggbeater kick, explaining more than 37% of the total variance (P<0.05). The present study indicates that anthropometric characteristics are more important predictors of the performance of the eggbeater kick.