Investigating the physiological characteristics and the results of world volleyball games in three different age groups

Investigating the physiological characteristics and the results of world volleyball
games in three different age groups
Abstract
Purpose: This research compares men’s volleyball teams participating in 3 different levels of World
Championship from the viewpoints of physiological characteristics, jumping height, and game.
Methods: The data (age, height, weight, BMI and high jump) have been collected from all
participating volleyball teams in the World championships from 2001 to 2006 (128 National teams
including 1536 national players). The exact points and duration of each set and each game (453
games including 1674 sets) were taken from the website of International Volleyball Federation. For
data analysis, descriptive statistics (average and standard deviation) as well as independent t-test were
used. All statistical procedures were performed in SPSS. Results: The results demonstrated that the
play duration of senior competitions is clearly more than that for juniors and youths. The teams with a
higher age average were more successful because of having more experienced players. Conclusions:
The physical characteristics of the players in international levels cannot determine the teams’ success
or failure. Attention must be paid to the tolerance of play duration in all three age groups (from 45 to
148 minutes) and the solutions for controlling this time must be presented.