Scholarly record

THE BIO-MOTRIC POTENTIAL OF STUDENTS IN ARAD COUNTY, ROMANIA

A. Costin, L. Bran, V. Toma, I. Galea, D.G. Negru

Abstract

Context. Nowadays an increasing number of students are heading to professional sports; at the same time, many students are not engaged in leisure physical activities, which is a serious alarm signal for the health of young populations and for sports. The aim of this study is to determine the bio-motric potential of secondary school students, rural and urban residents, on the assumption that Body Mass Index (BMI) is an indicator of health and it can also indicate the possibility that subjects with healthy weight achieve better results – according to age and gender – in skills curricula tests. Subjects. The study involved secondary school students, boys (B) and girls (G): N = 200, for 95% confidence level and normal distribution of 50%, with 6.8 margin of error, results being valid for 43.1% - 56.9% of the 11-16 aged population of Arad. Method. Height and weight were measured for BMI calculation according to percentile based pediatric tables. For motric qualities, sport curriculum tests were carried out for 5th-8th graders: speed (S) 50m, throwing ball (TB), endurance (E) 600m and 800m F, 800m and 1000m M respectively, back extension/30sec (BE), abdominal exercises/30sec (A), push-ups/30sec (PU) and standing long jump (SLJ). The data were statistically analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics 20 and MedCalc (average, percentage, central tendency, Std.Dev, measures of dispersion, chi square tests, t-Student). Results. Body Mass Index was associated with motric qualities as follows: healthy weight students had increased opportunities to perform compared to overweight and obese students. They had three times more chances for speed 50 m (p = 0.0155, 95% CI 1.2365 to 7.5114), two times more chances for throwing ball (p = 0.0391, 95% CI: 1.0376 to 4.2331) and rear back extension (p = 0.0239, 95% CI: 1.1158 to 4.7047), 3.5 times more chances in pushups (p = 0.0349, 95% CI: 1.0949 to 11.8015) and 4 times more chances in standing long jump (p = 0.0002, 95% CI: 1.9652 to 8.5859), achieving good scores in 5 of the 7 total tests. Conclusions. There were significant differences in terms of students’ growth development and motric qualities, irrespective of residence type (rural or urban). These results suggest that, in terms of the residence selection for future sports champions there is no difference between their rural or urban extraction; it also shows that a healthy Body Mass Index is definitely associated with bio-motric potential.

Publication details

Back to publication list