Physiological and Motor Performance Parameters of Female Athlete and Non-Athlete Students in a Ghana University: A Comparative Pilot Study

Optimal sports performance through a series of training may be fully achievable when physiological and motor fitness attributes of athletes are monitored and strengthened (1). Along with effective physiological functioning, power, speed, muscular strength, muscle endurance, and coordination play significant roles in various sports disciplines (2). An efficient soccer training potentiates cardiorespiratory capacity, power, agility, and speed improvement (3). A study had shown that cardiorespiratory capacity and endurance would provide immediate oxygen availability during the recovery phase of high-intensity games (4).

Although few studies have been conducted on female athletes (5), the women’s world championship that began over six decades after the FIFA Men’s World Cup with only twelve participating countries proved the athletic potentials of females over and over again. It has been observed that optimal trophy has however continued to elude most African female athletes (teams) due to irregularity information on age, administrative lapses, sponsorship issues, lack of training equipment, and required health and fitness data. We also noticed that the coaching crew of most typical Ghanaian female teams worked without consistent monitoring of physiological and motor attributes of their athletes. This would negatively affect optimal performance at international competitions irrespective of technical competency of coaches. It can be reiterated that although athletes’ poor performance might also be attributed to physiological and motor inefficiency, coaches usually associated with poor athletic performance to suboptimal performance during competitions. To achieve the best female players, Optimal sports performance should not be limited to training tactics solely rather than the gathering of holistic and comprehensive health information (6).

We have observed that female athletes received little attention from necessary quarters before, during and after competitions in most African countries including Ghana. We suggest that the underperformance period of Ghanaian female athletes in all sports competitions should be accompanied by health consideration. Since some of the national female athletes are recruited from the universities across the country; documenting baseline pilot data of a-university athletes’ health outcomes could be crucial for a nation-wide investigation. Obesity has also become a common health concern among all, especially females. Although prominent effects of the participation in sports on females’ physiological and motor outcomes have been well investigated, comparative evidence among female athlete and non-athlete students in a Ghana University is needed.

This pilot study comparatively investigated the physiological and motor performance parameters of female athlete and non-athlete students in a Ghana University.

The results showed that 20 (64.5%) of the participants were within the age range of 20 - 22 years. 3 (9.7%) of the non-athletes were underweight, 19 (61.3%) were with normal weight, 7 (22.6%) overweight, and 2 (6.5%) of the non-athletes obese. The mean age of athletes was (22.18 ± 1.79), while non-athlete was (21.00 ± 2.50), the mean weight of athletes was 56.94 ± 9.84 and non-athletes was 56.36 ± 7.62; and the mean height was 1.61 ± 0.62 and 1.57 ± 0.52, respectively.

Table 1 shows that the female athletes had a higher VO₂max, power of arms, and shoulders and better speed compared with non-athlete ones.

The comparison of ANOVA homogeneity and equality of variance of means across sporting disciples showed that most of the attributes, except for VO₂max, the power of arms and shoulders, and the speed, were not significant (P > 0.05). Further analysis performed on significant attributes using adjusted F test of Brown-Forsythe statistic revealed that muscle endurance and speed do not violate assumption (P > 0.05). This suggests equal variances among mean scores of all attributes except for BMI, muscle endurance, and VO₂max (P < 0.05).

Significant differences were observed in weight, BMI, %body fat, visceral fat, VO₂max, and agility among sporting disciples (Table 2). For the specific direction of significance (Tukey post-hoc in Table 3), Netball players had higher weight, BMI, %body fat, and agility with lower visceral fat and VO₂max compared with that of soccer players, athletics, and badminton players. Soccer players had higher muscle mass and VO₂max compared with players in other sporting disciplines.

The current pilot study comparatively investigated the physiological and motor performance parameters of female athlete and non-athlete students in a Ghana University. The findings revealed that both groups have similar attributes with minor differences. Noticeable similarities consisted of age, weight, body mass index (relative body weight), blood pressure, muscle mass, visceral fat, muscle endurance, the power of legs and agility (Table 1). The findings imply that sports participation insignificantly contributes to health outcomes of female students, which negate initial postulations (7-12).

Although most physiological and motor performance parameters of athletes in this study were insignificantly different from non-athletes, our study showed that the female athletes were older than the ages reported in many studies (13-15), while some reported younger ages in few studies (16). These female athletes had normal weight according to a systematic reviewed of Nuttall (17) and were below the average in maximal oxygen uptake (18).

The findings of our study on body composition parameters -body fat, muscle mass, and visceral fat- were not congruent with the recent work, which examined the relationship between the body fat percentage and anthropometric measurements in athletes compared with non-athletes (7). In fact, these female athletes had a mean heart rate less than the lower limit of black female non-athletes reported by Hart (19). It would best be described that the obtained heart rate rendered the athletes unfit for the nature of their game. However, the mean value of the blood pressure of female university athletes in this study was considerably consistent with the literature (20, 21).

The means of motor performance attributes- the power of arms and shoulders, muscle endurance, the power of legs, speed, and agility- in this study were less than the values recorded in the work of Manske and Reiman (22). Our findings showed that female netball students were averagely overweight than all the other sports groups with a BMI score of 26.37. This finding was compared with the study of Nikolaidis (23) who reported a high prevalence of overweight (27.5%) among adolescent volleyball players. Also, comparing the average BMI score to standard, it is realized that the healthier groups are the soccer and athletic groups with a score of 20.98 and 20.16 repetitions, respectively. The fairly healthy group is badminton with 18.95 repetitions and the overweight group is the netball group. Hence, the netball group needs to work on BMI by reducing its weight.

Female soccer students in this study, on average, had more muscle mass than athletic, badminton and netball students. However, they had relatively the least body fat scores in comparison to athletic, badminton, and netball students. Badminton students had the least muscle mass and visceral fat scores compared with soccer, athletic, and netball students. Similar outcomes have been reported that female senior soccer players possessed more muscularity than shot putters and athletics, which are consistent with the results of the current study (11, 24). Considering visceral fat, athletics, soccer, badminton, and netball fall into the standard category. Researchers have mentioned that more mass means greater muscular force, and higher energy expenditure is required (25). The results denote that female soccer students produce more muscular force and expend more energy than athletic, netball, and badminton students.

Given the motor performance attributes, agility was the only attribute with a statistically significant difference value. Researchers have established that one of the essential components in most fields and sports teams is agility (26). Agility is an important factor in determining motor performance attributes. Comparison of the motor performance attributes with standard age categories indicated that the age category of 17 - 19 has cardiovascular endurance levels in the average rate. Age category of 20 - 22 and 26 - 28 have endurance levels at an excellent rate. However, the age category of 23 - 25 has endurance levels at a good rate.

With respect to the power of legs, age categories of 17 - 19 and 20 - 22 fall into the very good rate, and age categories of 23 - 25 and 26 - 28 fall into an excellent rate. However, in terms of sports groups, badminton, soccer, and athletics fall into an excellent rate and netball falls into the very good rate. Finally, regarding the power of arms and shoulders, all the sports groups fall into an excellent rate. In terms of age categories, all the age categories also fall into an excellent rate. Anaerobic power is the muscle’s ability to exert high force while contracting at a high speed (27). Volleyball performance heavily relies upon force generated from the lower body. Athletes require large amounts of power in order to produce elite level vertical jumps (28).