Abstract

1

• JUDOKAS HAND GRIP STRENGTH STUDY, ACCORDING TO
  AGE,
• WEIGHT CLASS AND CHAMPIONSHIP PERFORMANCE

Abstract This study aimed to present a survey
with the reference values from 254 Brazilian male
judokas hand grip strength according to their
age, weight class and performance during a State
Judo Championship. Data were collected during the
weighing-in (critical moment) with a Jamal hand
grip apparatus and the mass was measured with the
official federation scale. As expected, the
semifinalists showed higher strength values but
such difference was not significant to suggest a
tendency that maximal static strength per si
should be able to influence the tournament
results, regarding their age and weight class.
While comparing ages, significant difference
(plt0.05) was found through factor univariate
ANOVA. Post Hoc test have shown significant
increases in strength from the pre-juvenile age
judokas to juvenile and also from juvenile until
junior age judokas. However no difference was
found between junior and senior judokas.
According to these differences, three homogeneous
groups were formed. Their values describe a
similar curve to those that represent the
general, muscle or even mass growth. These
significant gains in strength among male judokas
from 13 until 19 years old suggest that strength
training should start in these ages. Despite of
the discussion presented by MAIA LOPES (2001)
this seems to be a sensitive or critical period
for strength training in agreement to Russian
studies (FILIN VOLKOV, 1998). As long as
strength training plays an essential role in
judokas preparation, it should be included in the
training process mainly on adolescence since the
age of 13 following the guidelines of American
Academy of Pediatrics (2001). One of the
mathematical models presented in this research
may help to determine the strength training loads
regarding the growth process, where HG
3,728957 x (mass) - 0,027506 x (mass)2
0,00006572 x (mass)3 - 51,318061 r 0,73 r2
0,53 SEE 13,5807 Key words Judo, growth,
strength training, handgrip
Mauro Cesar Gurgel de Alencar Carvalho (1, 2, 3,
8) João Paulo Dubas (4, 5) Julio Cesar do Prado
(1, 6, 7) Felipe Leal de Paiva Carvalho (1, 3)
Estélio Henrique Martin Dantas (3) Gerson Gomes
Cunha (8) Luis Landau (8) Alexandre Janotta
Drigo (1, 9) Paulo Henrique Silva Marques de
Azevedo (1, 10) (1) JUDÔjo Grupo de estudos e
pesquisas de Judô (2) Colégio Pedro II (RJ) (3)
LABIMH Universidade Castelo Branco (RJ) (4)
Universidade Santa Cecília (5) Escola Paulista de
Medicina UFSP (6) Colégio LaSalle Manaus
AM (7) Centro de Treinamento de Alto Rendimento /
Região Norte (8) LAMCE PEC COPPE
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (9) FEF
UNICAMP (10) Universidade Federal de São
Carlos mauro_gurgel_at_hotmail.com ou
mcgac_at_coc.ufrj.br
Introduction The first scientific papers about
Judo started to be published in the late 50's by
the Japaneses, but only after the 60's the
evaluations on judokas were more frequent, and
tried to characterize the judokas' profiles and
predict their sport performance 1. Japanese
hand grip studies among their national team begun
since 1969 2, 3, 4. In this area of evaluation
and control of the training process, muscle
strength is one of the main components of general
physical preparation and essential for Judo 5,
6. Bompa 7 says that it improves performance
and the execution of many sport
skills. Periodical muscle strength evaluations
allow to classify students, determine their
actual condition, measure their progress, and
present more objective ways to test, measure and
evaluate their results, identify talents and
predict performance 8. Hand grip strength is
an important measure to predict performance among
teenagers when associated with push-ups test and
seated medicineball throw 9, however it does
not have relation to performance when it is
analysed alone 10. Some studies has dealt with
hand grip strength in Judo 11, 12, 13, 14, as
did Thomas et al. 15 have shown the profile of
Canadian Judo team, however they didnt present
the results respecting the weight class
characteristics as did Pregnolatto et al. 16
and Nunes et al. 17. So, there is a need to
present such strength profile among competitor
judokas respecting their ages and weight classes.
The exploratory analysis performed alloed the
application of ANOVA for age and performance
comparisons.

Objectives To present the hand grip strength
profile of competitor judokas according to their
ages and weight classes. To compare the different
ages. To compare semifinalists against
non-semifinalists. Material and methods 254
competitor judokas, who were previously
classified to compete in the State Championship
were measured immediately after the weigh-in
moment. The Jamar instrument was used to take a
single measure of the right and left hand grip
strength and their sum was calculated. This one
trial measure procedure was already validated
18 and applied in this study due to the
judokas anxiety level and the lack of time and
space to perform the regular used three trials.
ANOVA has shown significant differences between
ages where the variability of data may explain
31 of such difference. There was no significant
difference between levels of performance. The
applied model has a strong power.



Results and Discussion The hand grip profiles
shown in the table below present the first
attempting among Brazilian male judokas according
to their ages and weight classes.
Scheffes post hoc test was performed and shoed
were the differences have fallen. Scheffes
homogeneous grouping test showed that three
different groups were formed where significant
increases of strength were found during the
puberty as well as the studies that Filin
Volkov showed 19. So strength training should
be encouraged within these ages. This increases
have show a similar curve to growth curve, so
curve models to predict strength by body mass was
developed.
Conclusions A male competitor judoka hand grip
profile was established. The results presented in
this study showed muscle strength increases at
the same sensitive periods for strength training
as Russian sports literature reports. This may
indicate that muscle strength training should be
potentialized during adolescence to reach higher
levels during the adult ages. Curve regressions
models were developed to predict hand grip
strength according to body mass.This may help
coaches to establish and control strength
training needs and increases during the studied
ages.
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