To what extent does sexual dimorphism exist in competitive powerlifters?

Abstract

We examined sexual dimorphism in the anthropometry of 68 Australasian and Pacific powerlifters (14 females, 54 males) who were competing in one of two national or international powerlifting competitions held in New Zealand. All powerlifters were assessed for 37 anthropometric dimensions by ISAK (International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry) Level II and III accredited anthropometrists. While the powerlifters were highly mesomorphic and possessed large girths and bone breadths, both in absolute terms and when expressed as Z(p)-scores compared through the Phantom (Ross & Wilson, 1974), these characteristics were often more pronounced in male than female lifters. No significant inter-gender differences in any of the measures of adiposity were observed. When normalized through the Phantom, the female and male powerlifters had relatively similar segment lengths and bone breadths, indicating that regardless of gender, competitive powerlifters possess comparable skeletal proportions. These results indicate that although competitive powerlifters exhibit sexual dimorphism for many absolute anthropometric measures, little dimorphism is found for measures of adiposity and for proportional segment lengths and bone breadths. These results further support the importance of anthropometric profiling for powerlifting, and suggest that successful male and female powerlifters will possess similar proportional characteristics.

Body composition of male and female Chilean powerlifters of varying body mass

“…In fact, absolute 1RM performance in the bench press was significantly increased from the lightweight toward the heavyweight male class, whether this was not the case for the absolute 1RM performance of the squat and deadlift exercises which are more reliant on force production from the lower limbs. Such a result appeared somewhat inconsistent with previous studies that found body mass related increases in squat and deadlift absolute 1RM 9,10 . As our results indicate, the inter-study differences may reflect the tendency for the Chilean middleweight and heavyweight male lifters to have a more absolute trunk but not leg lean mass than the lightweight male lifters.…”

“…Consistent with the fact that the IPF events have different bodyweight classes, a true representation of the powerlifting body composition requires a direct comparison of powerlifters across a range of bodyweight categories. While this has been done before in male 1,2 and female powerlifters 9 , these studies have collected data from Western countries that predominantly included Caucasian powerlifters. Although one study has been reported for Latin-American powerlifters 10 , this study only reported data for male powerlifters.…”

Development of a Web Application Based on Human Body Obesity Index and Self-Obesity Diagnosis Model Using the Data Mining Methodology

“…Therefore, various research studies on obesity values or body shape values that can supplement BMI have been conducted and new measures have been proposed, including a body shape index (ABSI), which is an indicator to assess health effects through height, weight, and waist circumference of a given human body that measures mortality based on the correlation between height, weight, and waist circumference [8]. The Brugsch's index is a measure of physical health that uses weight and height [9]. The weight of Kaup's index, and the presence of height, is proportionally determined by body type, such as obesity [10].…”

Female Athletic Sport Types: Bone Pelvis and its Morphofunctional Charasteristics in Sexual Somatotypes

“…Актуальность. Любые исследовательские работы, касающиеся медико-биологических особенностей женского спорта, в онтогенезе а, особенно, в исконно мужских, атлетически-силовых видах спорта, всегда являются актуальными и востребованными [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. В связи с этим, целью нашего исследования является определение имеющихся анатомических и морфофункциональных показателей у спортсменок разных половых соматотипов, занимающихся такими атлетическими видами спорта, как гиревой спорт, тяжёлая атлетика и пауэрлифтинг.…”

“…Среди исследовательских работ, касающихся изменений со стороны костной и репродуктивной систем у спортсменок, физических изменений в половых соматотипах и проявлений адаптационных механизмов, хочется отметить ряд авторов [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Интерес к этой проблеме диктуется процессом акселерации, увеличением весо-ростовых показателей у молодых женщин, возрастанием смешанных форм узкого таза, с разными степенями его сужения, соматическими изменениями в половых соматотипах у них.…”