Relationship between Anthropometric Parameters and Jumping ability among Male Undergraudate College Students-A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Vertical Jump (VJ) is a key skill for many athletes. Whether its basketball, volleyball, football or tennis, it is very important in many sports. There are very limited studies on the topic and those available are mainly conducted on sports specific events and athletes. In this study, the subjects selected were non-sports healthy individuals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between anthropometric parameters and jumping ability among undergraduate college students.

Method: Undergraduate college students (n=62) aged between 18-25 years were included in the study. Twenty six parameters of International Society for Advancement of Kineanthropometry(ISAK) were selected along with lower limb Manual Muscle Testing(MMT) and Range Of Motion(ROM) prior to the study. The participants were evaluated for their jumping ability. Data was analyzed using Pearson’s correlation .Level of significance was set at p <0.05.

Result: Out of the 58 parameters, 1 parameter showed excellent negative correlation (weight), 17 parameters showed good negative correlation, 12 parameters showed moderate correlation, 16 parameters showed poor negative correlation and 12 parameters showed poor positive correlation.

Conclusion: There exist a significant relationship between the anthropometric parameters and jumping ability. The most significant parameter affecting jumping height was found to be Weight, which gave an excellent negative correlation and the other parameter were muscle girth and skin fold.