Luciana de Souza Menezes; Jefferson Novaes & José Fernandes-Filho

Summary

The objective of the present study was to identify and compare the somatotype of 125 Brazilian athletes and practitioners of Rhythmic Gymnastics of different qualification levels from 7 to 25 years old, divided into the following categories: different competitive levels (international, national and regional) and pre and post menarche practitioners. One hundred twenty-five Brazilian athletes and practitioners of Rhythmic Gymnastics of different levels of qualification from 7 to 25 years old were evaluated. The protocol used was Heath & Carter somatotype. The descriptive study was applied. In order to define the profile of the data collected, the descriptive statistics with measurements of position and dispersion were estimated. The Analysis of Variance was applied. Inferential analysis, for continuous variables, was used in order to identify the existence of significant statistical differences among the Post menarche, Pre menarche, international level, national level and regional level. Afterwards the Post Hoc Tuckey test was applied. According to the results, the somatotype for the different categories are: international level= balanced ectomorphy, national= balanced ectomorphy, regional= ectomesomorphy, pre menarche practitioners= balanced endomorphy and post menarche practitioners= endoectomorphy. Significant statistical differences were found in the following variables: endomorphy and mesomorphy. It is concluded that the most similar categories in the present study were the national and regional levels, on the other hand, the most different categories were the pre menarcheal and the international level.

KEY WORDS: Gymnastics; Somatotype; Menarche.

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