BODY COMPOSITION ANALYSIS OF YOUTH FOOTBALL PLAYERS

ABSTRACT Football is the most popular game and is one of the most dynamically developing sport regarding training means, methods, and use of technologies. We are witnessing constant improvement of sport selection, increasing dynamics in both training process and speed of playing, etc. We find a lot of information regarding body composition of elite football players, but such information for adolescents is fragmentary. The aim of the following study is to reveal real data of youth football players using special equipment (In Body 270) measuring in total 13 indexes. Respondents are players from the youth academy of PCS “Levski” Sofia in U13, U14 and U15 teams. All data is subject to statistical and expert analysis. The total number of respondents is 57 divided by three age groups. The fundamental anthropometric indexes height and weight reveal logical increase as follows: average height increases from 159 cm (U13), 167 cm (U14) to reach 175 cm (U15). The corresponding average weight vary between 45,9 kg (U13) to 62,1 kg (U15). One of the easiest to measure index is BMI have average values for studied teams as follows: 17,9 (U13), 19,0 (U14) and 20,3 (U15). All other indexes as body fat, skeletal and muscle weight are analyzed in detail for the three age groups. Based on received data and the development of evaluation tables we can control objectively body composition of youth football players. This way we can improve sport selection and training process. All experimental data must be used applying the individual approach for assessing the anthropometric and sexual development of the player.