The Structure of Motor Fitness of Young Footballers in a Three-Year Sports Period

Abstract

In the continuous research, conducted in the sports school in Tarnów (Poland) with a football profi le, the authors
attempted to fi nd out whether the changes of hidden predispositions and motor abilities appear during the training
process which constitute the foundation for the development of technical and tactic fi tness against the background
of the similar research results carried out in the comparative groups of non-training individuals. In the research the
measurements of the basic somatic traits, anthropometric indexes, VO 2 max  × kg  –1  and motor skills were taken into
consideration. The observations were made every six months for three years. The comparative group consisted of
the peers with attending randomly chosen schools (comparative group). The conducted factor analysis revealed the
fact that there are minor quantitative differences of the motor structure between training and non-training groups
during a three-year observation period. In both the sportsmen’s and less physically active boys’ groups the number
of separated factors did not increase as well as the set of variables taken into account. It can be concluded then,
that the applied way of sports selection as well as the process of their adaptation to a specifi c training ballast might
have been the causative factor of the structure effi ciency specifi cation among children from sports schools. In this
connection, they cannot deny the thesis that a talented sports master can be recognized already as a child. Still, the
ways of such a selection seem controversial.

Keywords: the structure of motor fitness of young footballers, continuous research, factor analysis.