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purpose of this study was to assess relative total body fat and skinfold
patterning in Filipino national karate and pencak silat athletes.
Participants were members of the Philippine men's and women's national
teams in karate (12 males, 5 females) and pencak silat (17 males and
5 females). In addition to age, the following anthropometric measurements
were taken: height, body mass, triceps, subscapular, supraspinale,
umbilical, anterior thigh and medial calf skinfolds. Relative total
body fat was expressed as sum of six skinfolds. Sum of skinfolds and
each individual skinfold were also expressed relative to Phantom height.
A two-way (Sport*Gender) ANOVA was used to determine the differences
between men and women in total body fat and skinfold patterning. A
Bonferroni-adjusted alpha was employed for all analyses. The women
had a higher proportional sum of skinfols (80.19 ± 25.31 mm
vs. 51.77 ± 21.13 mm, p = 0. 001, eta2 = 0.275). The men had
a lower proportional triceps skinfolds (-1.72 ± 0.71 versus
- 0.35 ± 0.75, p < 0.001). Collapsed over gender, the karate
athletes (-2.18 ± 0.66) had a lower proportional anterior thigh
skinfold than their pencak silat colleagues (-1.71 ± 0.74,
p = 0.001). Differences in competition requirements between sports
may account for some of the disparity in anthropometric measurements.
KEY
WORDS: Fat, skinfold, Filipino, karate, pencak silat.
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