Correlations between Anthropometric Measurements and Sports Discipline Aptitude

Abstract

Background: Sports specialization is required for the advancement of elite-level skills of a competitor. Therefore, this study attempted to assess the applicability of anthropometric measurements for a tailored selection of sports disciplines. Methods: The sports disciplines studied in this report were wrestling, triple jumping, badminton, and tennis. The data used in this study were obtained from a PubMed search. Literature-derived data were used as a template to build a random Gaussian population of N = 500 subjects used for ratio calculation using the error propagation approach. The obtained ratios encompassed height/sitting height, height/length, height/arm length, height/waist circumference, height/chest circumference, sitting height/leg length, sitting height/arm length, sitting height/waist circumference, sitting height/chest circumference, arm/leg length, and arm length/forearm length. Results: There is a clear relationship between a sports discipline and the distribution of the anthropometric ratio. The anthropometric measurements of wrestlers are the most outstanding among the disciplines studied. The use of machine learning algorithms, that is, the decision tree classifier, allows for building a model able to distinguish between the disciplines of sports studied. Conclusions: The presented approach allows for selection of a specific sports discipline for a young person. Moreover, an extension of the model built by other sports disciplines and anthropometric measurement may be a practical tool for selecting sports subjects.