ASSOCIATION BETWEEN BODY COMPOSITION AND CARDIORESPIRATORY FITNESS OF ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

With the aim to investigate the association between body composition of adolescents and cardiorespiratory fitness, this research was carried out on a sample of seventh grade primary school students (38 female and 44 male students). The sample of measuring instruments for body composition assessment were: body mass index, triceps, subscapularis and suprailiac subcutaneous adipose tissue, body fat percentage, muscle mass percentage and fat-free mass. The “Beep” test was used for the assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness. At the multivariate level the results have shown that body composition, as a system predictor, explained 51% (p= .000) of variance of cardiorespiratory fitness of the total sample of students, 29% (p= .021) of the girls and 51% (p= .000) of the boys. At the univariate level of the total sample it was noticed that the sum of three skinfolds (t= -4.91; p= .000) and fat-free mass (t= 4.54; p= .000) had a high influence on system prediction. The sum of three skinfolds in the total sample, sample of girls and sample of boys had a negative impact on cardiorespiratory fitness. For the girls, body fat percentage had a positive impact on cardiorespiratory fitness, while in the total sample and sample of boys, fat-free mass had a positive impact on cardiorespiratory fitness. It could be concluded that the association between body composition components and VO2max was clearly demonstrated in adolescents.