Biological characteristics of young swimmers, tennis players and non-competitors

One hundred and twelve finalists in the State Swimming Championships aged between seven and twelve years and 65 ranked tennis players of similar age were selected on the basis of their sporting performances. A third group comprised children of similar socio-economic status who only took part in casual sport. The tests which were used in the study were those considered to be important for successful athletic performance. A multifactorial analysis of variance and post-hoc t-tests were applied to the data to determine if any statistical differences were apparent between the three groups. The results demonstrated that no size, body shape, flexibility, strength or lung function differences were evident between the competitors and non-competitors, but that the swimmers and tennis players were superior to the non-competitors in cardiovascular endurance.