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Page 1 of 2  The purpose of this study was to assess relative total body fat and skinfold patterning in Filipino national karate and pencak silat athletes. Participants were members of the Philippine men's and women's national teams in karate (12 males, 5 females) and pencak silat (17 males and 5 females). ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to assess relative total body fat and skinfold patterning in Filipino national karate and pencak silat athletes. Participants were members of the Philippine men's and women's national teams in karate (12 males, 5 females) and pencak silat (17 males and 5 females). In addition to age, the following anthropometric measurements were taken: height, body mass, triceps, subscapular, supraspinale, umbilical, anterior thigh and medial calf skinfolds. Relative total body fat was expressed as sum of six skinfolds. Sum of skinfolds and each individual skinfold were also expressed relative to Phantom height. A two-way (Sport*Gender) ANOVA was used to determine the differences between men and women in total body fat and skinfold patterning. A Bonferroni-adjusted alpha was employed for all analyses. The women had a higher proportional sum of skinfols (80.19 ± 25.31 mm vs. 51.77 ± 21.13 mm, p = 0. 001, eta2 = 0.275). The men had a lower proportional triceps skinfolds (-1.72 ± 0.71 versus - 0.35 ± 0.75, p < 0.001). Collapsed over gender, the karate athletes (-2.18 ± 0.66) had a lower proportional anterior thigh skinfold than their pencak silat colleagues (-1.71 ± 0.74, p = 0.001). Differences in competition requirements between sports may account for some of the disparity in anthropometric measurements.
INTRODUCTION
In general, elite athletes may be characterized by optimal endurance and strength as well as a physique conducive to high performance. For instance, long distance runners will have an excellent cardiorespiratory endurance, and shot putters will show a well-developed strength profile. Artistic gymnasts are generally shorter than swimmers or basketball players. Regardless of the sport discipline and on average, athletes are less fat and more muscular than non-athletes (McDougall et al., 1991).
Similar to athletes in other sports, those in combat sports have also been profiled. However, only limited information is available on them. For instance, Pieter and Taaffe, 1990 tested the isokinetic strength of elite American taekwondo athletes and found their hamstrings to quadriceps (H/Q) ratios to be lower than expected. Their aerobic endurance was characteristic of intermittent-activity athletes with a relatively well-developed anaerobic endurance level (Taaffe and Pieter, 1990).
Structural features of Judo athletes were described by Maas, 1974 and Carter (1982), who concluded that elite male judo athletes were heavy for their height. For instance, the male judo athletes competing in the 1976 Olympic Games recorded a reciprocal ponderal index (RPI) of 40.86 cm/kg0.333 (Carter, 1982).
In terms of body composition, the Canadian national men's judo team was assessed as having 12.27% of fat (Taylor and Brassard, 1981) and 9.3% in a follow-up study (Thomas et al., 1989). As expected, American elite male judo athletes (judoka) had less fat than their female counterparts (Callister et al., 1991). Tumilty et al., 1986 found Australian elite Junior judoka to have a higher sum of eight skinfolds than their Senior counterparts. Claessens et al. (1986a) used the sum of three skinfolds (tricipital, subscapular and suprailiac) and reported that the lighter elite Belgian male judoka (< 71 kg) had a sum of 19.3 mm, while the heavier athletes (71 - 86 kg) recorded 18.9 mm. Similarly, international elite male judoka recorded higher sums of three skinfolds with increasing weight division (Claessens et al., 1987).
Pieter et al., 1998a studied adult elite Filipino female judoka competing for the national team in terms of their body fat and proportional skinfold patterning. The judoka were statistically compared with a sample of elite American female taekwondo athletes (taekwondo-in). The judo group as a whole had a larger sum of six skinfolds than the taekwondo-in. The lightweight (< 60 kg) judoka were proportionally relatively similar to the taekwondo groups, but the heavyweight (> 60 kg) judoka recorded higher proportional values for all skinfolds.
It has been suggested that gender and sport may contribute most to the variance in fatness (sum of skinfolds) in athletes (Malina et al., 1982). For instance, long distance runners typically have less fat than swimmers, regardless of the event, while female athletes in the same sport have more fat than their male counterparts (e.g., Wilmore and Costill, 2004). Excess fat is generally believed to be detrimental to performance (e.g., Sinning, 1985).
Gender was found to be the single most important contributor to fat patterning: female athletes have a higher extremity/trunk fat ratio (Malina et al., 1982; Ross and Ward, 1984). However, there is also a sport effect. For instance, male and female short distance runners were found to have more centrally located fat, while swimmers had a lower extremity/trunk fat ratio (Malina et al., 1982).
When sum of six skinfolds was used as a single indicator, it was found to be the best adiposity marker to differentiate between level and position in rugby. However, when skinfold measurements were taken into account as well, it appeared that skinfold patterning better discriminated between groups (Kieffer et al., 2000).
Since no information on fatness and fat patterning is available on Filipino combat sports athletes other than our own studies on female judoka (Pieter et al., 1998a; 1998b), the purpose of the present investigation was to assess the relative total body fat and skinfold patterning of Filipino national karate and pencak silat athletes. Anthropometric data on pencak silat athletes are scarce and female Karateka (karate athletes) have hardly been studied. Information on fatness and the anatomical distribution of fat may contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between sport, athlete and anthropometric characteristics.
METHODS
Participants were members of the Philippine men's and women's national teams in karate (12 males, 5 females) and pencak silat (17 males and 5 females). Standing height was measured with a wall-mounted wooden stadiometer to the nearest 0.05 m. Body mass was assessed with a calibrated electronic digital scale to the nearest 0.01 kg.
A Slim Guide skinfold caliper was used to measure skinfold thicknesses at the triceps, subscapula, supraspinale, umbilical, anterior thigh and medial calf. Compared to the Harpenden and Lange calipers, the Slim Guide yielded technical errors of measurement of around 5% (Ross et al., 2000). The reliability correlation coefficient for a range of skinfold thicknesses using the Slim Guide against the Harpenden caliper and Echoscan 1502 Ultrasound system resulted in an R = 0.98 at the minimum (Anderson and Ross, 1986). All measurements, according to the specifications provided by Ross and Marfell-Jones, 1991, were taken three times, unless the first two were the same, and the median used for statistical analysis.
Proportional sum of skinfolds and proportional skinfold patterning of the athletes were based on the Phantom stratagem (Ross and Marfell-Jones, 1991). Proportional sum of six skinfolds was calculated as: sum of six skinfolds x (170.18/height). Phantom skinfold patterning was derived using the following formula that is based on a hypothetical human population (Ross and Ward, 1984):
z = 1/s [v (170.18/h)d - p]
where z represents a proportionality value in z scores. s is the standard deviation of the Phantom value for the variable of interest. v is the observed size of that variable. 170.18 is the constant for Phantom height in cm. h refers to the observed height of the participant. d is a geometrical exponent and equals 1 for all lengths, widths, girths and skinfold thicknesses; 2 for all areas and 3 for all masses and volumes. p refers to the Phantom value for variable v.
The data were analyzed for skewness and kurtosis, while the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to assess normality. A two-way (Gender*Sport) ANOVA was used to determine the differences between men and women by sport in RPI, absolute and proportional sum of skinfolds as well as proportional skinfold patterning. The L statistic (e.g., Thomas and Nelson, 2001) was employed in cases where the distributions were not normal. Due to the multiple comparisons, a Bonferroni-adjusted alpha was used for all analyses to prevent Type 1 error (e.g., Ntoumanis, 2001).
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