A comparative study of body composition, aerobic power, anaerobic power and srenght of Iranian freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestlers participating in the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 )

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between body composition, aerobic power, anaerobic power and strength of Iranian Free-style and Greco-Roman wrestlers participating in Beijing Olympic Games 2008 and comparison of these variables between two groups. Subjects: Twelve Iranian national wrestlers [(Free-style, n = 7, age = 22.8 ± 3.9 years, height = 172.7 ± 6.3 cm, BF% = 11.1 ± 2.8) and (Greco-Roman, n = 5, age = 23.8 ± 1.6 year, height = 179.2 ± 7 cm, BF% = 11.8 ± 4.4)] participated in this study. Method: fat free mass (FFM) and body fat percentage (BF%) were measured using bioelectrical impedance analyzer. Aerobic power was measured using gas analyzing method. Wingate anaerobic and ergo jump tests were used to assess anaerobic power of arm and leg respectively. Strength was measured in 5 parts of body by multi-purpose machine included chest press, abdominal crunch, upper back, hand grip and deadlift. A Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine relationship between variables and independent-samples t-test for comparison between variables. Results: the results showed that there are significant correlation between values of arm and leg Wingate tests with FFM (r = 0.83, p ≤ 0.05 and r = 0.91, p ≤ 0.05 respectively). The result of arm Wingate test was also positively associated with chest press (r = 0.72, p ≤ 0.05), and Leg Wingate test positively associated with upper back and deadlift (r = 0.85, p ≤ 0.05 and r = 0.68, p ≤ 0.05 respectively) and we found significant correlation between results of VO2max and ergo-jump test (r = 0.75, p ≤ 0.05). The results of ergo-jump were negatively associated with BF% (r = -0.64 p ≤ 0.05).

Elite wrestlers, Physical fitness tests