A study on position wise differences in anthropometric and physiological variables of basketball players

Abstract

Purpose of the study is to see whether selected anthropometric and physiological variables effectively discriminate between guards, forwards and centre players of basketball game. To realize this purpose, 600 male basketball players from different parts of Karnataka were randomly selected for the study. The age ranged from 12 to 32 years. Guards (N=200), forwards (N=200) and centers (N=200) represented their specific playing positions. Height, weight, sitting height, arm span, four width measurements, three girth measurements, five skin folds were measured. Physiological variables namely vital capacity and blood pressure were measured. All the anthropometric variables transformed as the stature adjusted variables using Ross and Wilson’s (1975) unisex human model (Z-scores). Step wise discriminant analysis was used to find out the group membership. Results revealed that height, stature adjusted forearm girth, stature adjusted supra-spinale skin fold, stature adjusted medial calf skin fold, stature adjusted mid-thigh skin fold, stature adjusted medial calf skin fold, stature adjusted triceps skin fold, stature adjusted leg length, stature adjusted bi-iliocristal width, peak expiratory flow and stature adjusted femur width were entered into the discriminant function in a stepwise progression. For function-1 Wilk’s lambda of 0.623, canonical correlation of 0.509 and chi square of 271.703wereall significant at α=0.05 level. For function-2, Wilk’s lambda of 0.853, canonical correlation of 0.383 and chi-square of 93.86 were also significant at α=0.05 level. 61.2% players were correctly classified in their respective groups. Height and stature adjusted mid-thigh skin folds contributed high in both functions.