COMPARISON OF ANTHROPOMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS, BIOMOTORICAL PERFORMANCE AND SKILL LEVELS OF 12-14 YEARS OLD BASKETBALL PLAYERS

In this study, it was aimed to compare the anthropometric characteristics, somatotype profiles, some biomotorical performances and basketball-specific skill levels of basketball players who were at different age levels, in adolescence period and were training with the same training methodology. The participants were 41 basketball players who were in the age range of 12-14 years, regularly trained and played basketball in the local youth setup leagues. The participants' body height, body weight, vertical jump, 1-mile run, aerobic power, anaerobic power, skinfold thickness (triceps, subscapula, suprailiac, calf), circumference (biceps flexion, calf), diameter measurements (humerus bicondylar, femur bicondylar) were made. Basketball-specific skills were determined using the Harrison Basketball Skill Test while the somatotype characteristics were determined according to the Heath-Carter method. Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests were used to determine whether the data were suitable for normal distribution. One-Way ANOVA test was used to examine the differences between the variables and Tukey test was used to investigate the cause of differences. Normality tests and other statistical analyses were performed at the significance level of 0.05. A significant difference was noted in humerus bicondylar diameters according to the age levels of basketball players and a statistical difference was detected in the data of vertical jump and anaerobic power in terms of biomotorical performance (p 0,05). In conclusion, in our study group, we did not find any difference among other anthropometric characteristics, somatotype profiles, and basketball specific skills except humerus diameter. We suggest that the difference in the vertical jump and anaerobic power values of biomotorical performance is due to the increase in the strength ratio along with the increase in age level