Assessment of dynamic balance levels in children and adolescents aged 10-13 years doing acrobatic gymnastics

Background. Postural body stability and balance are the people’s basic skills enabling functioning in everyday life. Such skills are also useful in multiple sport disciplines. Their most important role, however is played in gymnastics related sports with multiple difficult elements and balance positions.Material and methods. 30 participants aged 10-13 years were selected for the study. 15 subjects regularly training aerobatic gymnastics and their 15 non training peers were also selected. The sample included 16 girls and 14 boys participated in the study. The selection was not random, it was the so-called convenience sampling. Y-Balance Test kit was used for the measurement of dynamic balance. Basic anthropometric measurements were taken. Prior to the actual attempt, each participant could perform a training trial in order to get acquainted with the test. The participants had to perform 3 tests in each direction: anterior (ANT), posteromedial (PM) and posterolateral (PL) on each lower limb. The distribution normality was assessed using Shapiro-Wilk test. For the analysis of the results the parametric tests: t-Student, Pearson correlation test, Spearman’s Rank correlation test, Levine’s, arithmetic mean test ( ) and standard deviation (SD) were used. The significance threshold was accepted at p<0.05.Results. Statistical analysis did not show any significant differences between dynamic stability in regularly training participants and their non training peers. A significant negative correlation (-0.390) was noted between BMI indices and the results obtained from Y- Balance test.Conclusions. Dynamic balance in the studied gymnasts and the non-training individuals was at a similar level. It has been found that overweight and obesity have a negative effect on dynamic balance, which should be taken into consideration in physioprophylaxis and health promotion.