Factors of success in advanced level wrestling; reliability and validity of several diagnostic methods

Abstract

Introduction. There is an evident lack of studies which examined factors which discriminate high-level wrestlers in pursuit of small differences in their quality. The aim of this study was to determine the applicability of several fitness parameters in order to discriminate between high-level and top-level wrestlers (n = 22; all males). Material and methods. The sample was divided into two groups: a top-level-group (selected for national-team; N = 6) and a high-level-group (national-team-sparing partners; N = 16). The variables included body height, body mass, BMI, sport-experience, bench-press, pull-ups, wrestling-modified-specific-judo fitness-test, VO2max, arm-cranking-test achievement (WATTmax); and physiological variables collected throughout a maximal progressive arm-cranking test: HRmax, and O2 decrease (pO2d; difference between maximum, and O2 concentration at exhaustion; all measured by transcutaneous oximetry). Results. The model (Y = 4.083 + 0.837 x pO2d) successfully classified 83% top level and 94% high-level wrestlers, indicating that among the top-level the transcutaneous oxygen partial pressure decrease (left + right) is more evidenced (OR 0.84; 95%CI: 0.72 − 0.97) Conclusions. The top-level-group was more experienced, had higher WATTmax and pO2. Forward conditional logistic regression revealed pO2d as a single significant predictor of the dichotomous criterion (top-level vs. high-level group). ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR