Perfil antropométrico e composição corporal de jogadores de futebol americano amador atuantes nas posições de offensive line e receiver na região metropolitana de Curitiba

Abstract

In Brazil there is little information about the anthropometric profile of American Football (FA) players. The aim of the present study was to identify the anthropometric profile, comparing body differences between 27 players from 2 male teams from the Curitiba Metropolitan Region, acting as Offensive Line (OL) (n = 16) and Receivers (n = 11), with the purpose of providing reference data to American Football athletes and scholars of the subject in Brazil. In sports, in addition to expressing the physical proportions of athletes, anthropometric measurements, when made periodically, are strong indicators of the body’s adaptive response to physical training stimuli, and studies have shown that OL players have a higher body mass compared to Receivers. Anthropometric profile and body composition were measured according to the International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry (ISAK) measurement protocols and calculated using the 5-component study by Deborah Kerr and William Ross. The comparison of data according to positions was verified by Student’s t test for independent samples, and for all samples a significance level of p <0.05 was adopted. The results show a significant difference between Offensive Line and Receivers in the variables total body mass (121.681 ± 19.686 and 80.182 ± 11.85 kg), epithelial mass (5.867 ± 0.546 and 5.031 ± 0.349 kg), adipose mass (40.41 ± 11.239 and 22,319 ± 4,529 kg), muscle mass (51,322 ± 7,489 and 35,864 ± 7,429 kg) and residual mass (15,440 ± 3,703 and 8,540 ± 1,470 kg) respectively. These data demonstrate the existence of significant differences in most measured variables between the two positions evaluated, showing that even the players being from amateur teams, the anthropometric characteristics are relevant for the selection of athletes suitable for each position.