Adaptation of professional athletes to various physical loads by means of body composition changes

Aim. The aim of this article is to establish the model values of body composition for professional combat athletes. Materials and methods. In the morning we measured body composition using Tanita BC-418 body analyzer. The study involved 3 groups of professional male athletes (Candidates for Master of Sport, Masters of Sport; body weight 60-75 kg) from various combat sports: kickboxing (n = 23), sambo and judo (n = 25), taekwondo (n = 22). Results. In judo and sambo athletes we revealed greater relative amount of adipose tissue (about 12%), while in kickboxers and taekwondo athletes its values were within 7-9%. Taekwondo athletes demonstrated the lowest values of adipose tissue in arms, while its values in legs were higher than in wrestlers. The lowest limbs muscle mass was registered in wrestlers, taekwondo athletes demonstrated higher muscle mass in legs, and both kickboxers and taekwondo athletes had higher muscle mass in arms. The difference between muscle mass in the trunk and muscle mass in legs was about 5 kg. Together with the data obtained using Box-Whiskers/Multiple graphic construction, where the median and 25-75 percentiles were almost identical, this proves that there are some model values for the body composition of professional athletes. Correlation analysis revealed that there was no correlation between muscle mass and adipose tissue in the limbs of wrestlers and kickboxers, while in taekwondo athletes we registered 3 correlations (р ≤ 0.05) mostly connected with arm muscles. Conclusion. We obtained body composition models for wrestlers, kickboxers and taekwondo athletes, which can allow us to individualize training process and forecast sport performance.