Anthropometric correlates of motor performance among Malaysian university athletes

Abstract

Numerous evident have shown body size and strength contributes to motor performance. The increase in strength is related to increase in total muscle mass (Ostojic, Mazic, & Dikic, 2006). Significant positive correlation between strength and performance indicate that stronger individuals were the individuals who performed better (Ball, Massey, Misner, Mckeown, & Lohman, 1992). However, the pattern of improvement of strength and physical performance is not uniform in all tasks. Strength may be important to the successful performance of some motor performances but not as important to others. It is likely that performance related to power events would show a similar trend to that of strength. Physique and body structure has generally been found to have a significant relation to physical performance (Gabbett & Georgieff, 2007). However, physique does not markedly influenced performance except at the extreme of the continuum. High degree of endomorph definitely limited physical performance capacity, while a high degree of mesomorphy are more adapted to motor performance. Nevertheless, correlations between physique, strength and performance are at best moderate and not sufficiently high for predictive purposes (Malina, 1975).