Body Composition of Qualified Goalkeepers and Outfield Football Players

The purpose of the study was to determine the indicators of physical development and body composition of goalkeepers and outfield football players. Materials and methods. 34 football players of the Ukrainian Premier League took part in the research, including: 11 goalkeepers and 23 outfield players. The following research methods were used: generalization of data from scientific and methodical literature, pedagogical observations, medical and biological methods (anthropometry, caliperometry); methods of mathematical statistics. Results and discussion. Anthropometric measurement was carried out according to 23 indicators and the composition of football players – according to 3 indicators. The most significant difference between goalkeepers and outfield players was determined by indicators of body weight, body length and body circumferences: wrist, forearm, shoulder at rest and tension, neck, hips. Thus, the body weight index of goalkeepers was 82.9 ± 5.8 kg, and outfield players – 69.1 ± 7.0 kg; the body length index of goalkeepers was 192.2 ± 5.1 cm, and that of outfield players was 179.2 ± 6.5 cm. That is, goalkeepers are taller compared to outfield players and mostly have a larger body mass. In addition, goalkeepers are stronger and stockier than outfield players in terms of parameters. Also, the indicators of skin-fat folds were significantly different, according to the playing role of footballers (p <0.001). It was found that goalkeepers are larger in terms of the volumes in the chest, waist and skin-fat folds in the area of the lumbar region of the back. A slight difference (14%, p <0.05) was found between goalkeepers and outfield players in the indicator of the skin-fat folds of the triceps muscle. A factor analysis of the obtained results of physical development was also carried out. The purpose of this analysis was to identify the generalized anthropometric characteristics and body composition of football players of various playing roles. Conclusion. For further consideration of the received information by the value of eigenvalues that had an indicator of at least 1, four informative factors were noted: factor 1 (7.99), factor 2 (2.24), factor 3 (1.58) and factor 4 (1.12). According to the relative contribution to the total variation, which should have been more than 10%, two informative factors were identified: factor 1 – 47.0%, factor 2 – 13.2%. It was possible to identify the following most important indicators for this group of factors: body weight, body length, circumferences: forearm, shoulder at rest, neck, waist, hips, lower legs; skin-fat folds: oblique abdominal muscle, biceps brachii, thigh, triceps brachii, lumbar back; composition of the body – "net mass". In the future, the results obtained in this way will allow coaches to make adjustments to the educational and training process to improve the physical and functional fitness of football players