Fitness and performance of children divers

Purpose: Competitive diving requires strength, agility, balance, timing, courage, and quickness for which an accurate evaluation of training is paramount, both for training planning and for injuries prevention. A detailed profile of children physical fitness allows the determination of the underlying performance qualities but also of a wide range of attributes associated with health-related quality of life.1 Methods: Forty children aged 5–10 were evaluated on multi-component aspects of physical fitness. 20 (D: 10 M, 10 F) attended a diving school, 20 (C: 10 M, 10 F) were same age sedentary peers. The test battery comprised 4 items: sit-and-reach (flexibility of hamstrings and lower back: SR), standing broad jump (lower limbs strength: SBJ), sit-ups (abdominal strength: SU) and the Functional Movement Screen for shoulder mobility (SM). Children divers were also evaluated for an elementary diving performance by three experienced coaches. All measurement were performed three times and the mean was considered as the final score of the subject for each item. Results: No significant differences were found between D and C in the anthropometrical values (age 8.0 ± 1.4 years, height 128.6 ± 9.0 cm, body mass 29.7 ± 5.2 kg, BMI 17.8 ± 1.6), indicating that they were evenly matched. Significantly different values were found between D (SR 4.6 ± 11.8 cm, SM 9.0 ± 5.5 cm, SBJ 109.3 ± 20.8 cm, SU 18.1 ± 5.3 n) and C (SR -1.4 ± 10.0 cm, SM 23.1 ± 24.8 cm, SBJ 72.6 ± 32.7 cm, SU 14.9 ± 4.4 n) for all fitness variables, showing that D had better fitness level than C. For all tested item nonsignificant differences were found between sexes. A significant correlation of performance with SR was found (r: 0.841; p\0.05). Conclusions: Recreational diving could represent a structured activity able to improve health-related fitness in primary school children. It entails technical abilities that are already heavily trained at early ages, requiring a constant and meticulous evaluation of fitness level.2 Among the fitness test battery used in the present work the sit-andreach appeared as the most correlated one to divers’ performance, while the other strength and mobility items could be indicative of the general fitness level of children. References Ortega FB et al. Physical fitness in childhood and adolescence: a powerful marker of health. Int J Obesity 2008;32:1–11. Demarie S et al. Strength and mobility of primary school children and its effect on diving points. Med Sport 2022;75:278–87.