Morphological Profile of Female Professional Soccer Players in Chile

Abstract

Foundation: In team sports as soccer, knowing the player´s profiles may allow a better choice and training. Female soccer, even though it started in the 70´s, only in the last decades it has had a considerable development.Objective: to describe the anthropometric and somatotype of soccer female players.Methods: descriptive study which consisted on evaluating 72 female soccer players pertaining to the Chilean Female Soccer Federation. For obtaining and analyzing their morphologic profile, their body mass, standing height, sitting height, the total sum of six cutaneous folders and eight cutaneous folders were measured according to the protocol of marking and measuring of the International Society for developing Cineanthropometry. There were also calculated the three components of Health-Carter somatotype for each game position.Results: There were not found significant differences of body mass, height, total of six and eight cutaneous folders, there were in the variable sitting height (p&lt;0,05). There were not significant differences at absolute and relative levels of adipose and body mass but there was in relative bone mass (p&lt;0, 05). The 66, 7 % of the players showed a mesomorphism as the main component.Conclusion: Mesomorphic somatotype predominated in all categories and there are significant differences among categories. That is why it is necessary to consider specific strategies for each of them aiming at optimizing the athlete’s sport output</p