Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

General Strength is important for the young children to take part in the sporting activity vigorously. Although specific strengths are required for different sports but the general strength is required for each athlete irrespective of their sports. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for strength testing and standards for testing the general strength of male athletes. Two hundred and thirty three male athletes between 8 and 17 years of age (mean age 12.80 ± 1.97 years) were selected from different training centres in India. Under close supervision of the qualified experts the subjects were tested for back strength, leg strength, arm press, arm lift and left and right hand grip tests. The data so obtained was analyzed using the factor analysis technique and different models were developed. Finally the best model was chosen and standards were developed for assessing the strength of male athletes in each age category. Analysis of the data revealed that only two parameters namely back strength and arm lift explained around 88.05% variability of the entire subjects. Since communality of both these parameters was same hence equal weight was given in developing the index. The results of the study can be used to assess the strength of men athletes in the age categories 8 to 17 years by using the standards provided in the paper.