Rhythmic Gymnastics On Different Levels Of Qualification. A Comparative Study.

Abstract

Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport that can be characterized for having athletes that achieve international status before becoming adults. Teenagers have a intensive training program in a period which can be associated to hormonal changes an body growing. PURPOSE: To compare the structural, chronological and physical variables differences between Rhythmic gymnastics athletes from different levels of qualification. METHODS: The sample was composed by the brazilian rhythmic team (international level) n = 07, National gymnasts (10 first places in the brazilian adult nationals) n= 10, State gymnasts (07 first places in the Rio de Janeiro state adult competition) n = 07. For the evaluation of the physical qualities the following protocols were used: coordination (test of coordination of Burpee), flexibility (goniometry test), explosive power (test of vertical impulse - Sargent jump). The statistic descriptive procedure used was the Shapiro wilk, and the inferencial one was the one-way ANOVA with Sheffe's post hoc. The study established p≤0.05 to statistic significance. RESULTS: showed significant statistic differences in the variables age between the international level and the other two (16.2 ± 1.49; 13.7 ± 1.25; 13.8 ± 1.34) and high between the international and the state gymnasts (162.2 ± 6.87; 156.6 ± 3.27; 155.6 ± 2.93). There were no significant statistic differences between the groups for weight (44.2 ± 5.06), Burpee (4.7 ± 0.53), Sargent jump (37.7 ± 4.00), Leg goniometry (33.0 ± 11.20). CONCLUSION: Differences in age can be explainned for Nationals and State championships allow juniors to participate. Most evaluated gymnasts narrated not having the menarch period yet or being late (after 15 years). At the same time, the best results in National and State competitions were achieved by the juniors. These results may be related to the late maturational period, considering that the presence of the strogenio hormone affects the athletes performance. In this study, there was found no difference for the physical variables, this way, the qualification difference is due to the thecnical and specific levels.