Differences in morphological characteristic of footballers over two preparatory periods

The morphological characteristics of athletes are one of the essential factors of sporting achievements in different sports. Football is one of the sports where monitoring changes in the morphological characteristics is a standard process for monitoring training effects. Purpose of this paper was to show changes in the morphological characteristics of footballers over two preparatory periods during one year. Morphological characteristics of footballers were analyzed using a bioelectric impedance method on body analyzer Tanita MC 780, height was measured using SECA type 220. Statistical analysis was done with IBM SPSS Statistics 26, with statistical significance set at p≤0.05. During the first preparatory period, statistically significant changes were found for the following variables: Total body water (TBW) (MD= -0.86; p=0.02), Intra celular water (ICW) (MD= -0.70; p=0.03), Percent Muscle Mass (PMM) (MD= -1.04; p=0.012). During the second preparatory period, statistically significant changes were found for the following variables: Percent Body Fat (PBF) (MD= -1.40; p=0.02), TBW (MD= 1.25; p=0.01), ICW (MD= 0.10; p=0.004), PMM (MD= 1.30; p=0.01). Concerning the obtained results, we conclude that the training process is not the only factor influencing the morphological characteristics of athletes.