IMPACT OF GYMNASTICS TRAINING ON THE HEALTHRELATED PHYSICAL FITNESS OF YOUNG FEMALE AND MALE ARTISTIC GYMNASTS

There are currently around 700 artistic gymnasts who are registered with the Bulgarian Gymnastics Federation, and more than 600 of them are under the age of 17. [...]the aim of this study was to assess the physical fitness levels of a representative sample of young competitive artistic gymnasts from different regions in Bulgaria, and show the impact of the training on the gymnasts' health by using the Alpha-Fit test battery. (Leger, Lambert, Goulet, Rowan, & Dinelle, 1984). [...]the software calculated the predicted VÜ2max by using Leger's equation (Leger, Mercier, Gadoury, & Lambert, 1988) in addition to the percentile score for each participant based on age- and gender-specific international norms (Miguel-Etayo et al., 2014; Tomkinson et al., 2016). [...]artistic gymnasts have smaller body sizes (especially in older children), in comparison to those for their age and gender, than the international norms, and, therefore, the evaluation of the strength parameters will be better assessed by relative parameters. [...]percentile scores of relative handgrip strength (per kg body weight), as well as percentile scores of relative UAMA (per kg body weight), will be a better way to appropriately assess both the gymnasts' muscle mass and strength.