Anthropometrical and sport constitutional comparison between young firefighters (≤ 30 years) and sport students (≤ 30 years)

Authors

  • Christoph Raschka Institute of Sports Sciences, Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Germany
  • Denis Bambusek Institute of Sports Sciences, Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Germany
  • Jonas Türk Institute of Sports Sciences, Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Germany

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12697/poa.2012.21.21

Keywords:

anthropometric measurements, body composition, firefighters, sports students

Abstract

The goal of this study was to find the typical body composition of a professional firefighter from Frankfurt/Main in Germany. For this purpose, sport students and firefighter volunteers, who had not reached the age of 30 years at that time, were measured. 88 male test persons participated in the present study. From these 88 test persons, 30 where professional firefighters with the average age of 24.8 years (± 2.6), and 27 firefighter volunteers with the average age of 22.8 years (± 3.2). The control group contained 31 sport students from the J. W. Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main. The mean age of the students was 24.5 years (± 3.3). The standard data body height, body weight, BMI, body fat and 55 body parameters after Raschka (2006) were assessed. The measurements were taken under standardized conditions by the authors of this work. The results were analyzed statistically.
The tallest body height and the highest body fat were found within the firefighter volunteers, the lowest value among the students. Interesting differences were found at the upper extremities, shoulder length and sagittal chest width. The professional firefighters had the biggest values followed by the firefighter volunteers. The AKS-Index showed no significant differences in all the groups.
High significant differences between the three groups were only found for the endomorphy. The somatochart of Heath and Carter showed no other significant findings.
Both firefighter groups showed the same characteristic in their plasticity. So they had a higher classification in the Plastic index than the students. They are in a more hyperplastic area than the students. Both groups also show a high bias towards the decreasing pyknomorph body shape and an approach to the metromorph body shape like the students.
All three groups were in the leptomorph-makrosom area of the Knussmann constitution system. The professional firefighters are obviously more leptomorph and more makrosom than the students and the volunteers.

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