Abstract

A retrospective study was performed in the period august 1987 till november 1989 covering a group of 234 sportsmen, voluntarily visiting a Sportsmedical Advice Center for sportsmedical examination and maximal exercise test on a bicycle. The surveys purpose was to obtain more data about the visitors of Sportsmedical Advice Centers. The survey showed that: 1) From these visitors 17 were female and 83 male. 2) The average age for the male sportsmen was 38 +/- 12 years and for the female sportsmen 36 +/- 12 years. 3) Three out of four sportsmen practise an endurance sport too. 4) The average hours of sport practice amounts to 85 hours for the male sportsmen and 65 hours for sportswomen. 5) 17 of the male sportsmen showed an exess of bodyweight when a Body Mass Index higher than 27 kg/square metre was taken into account. 6) When the fat percentage was estimated according to Durnin, it appeared that more than 50 of all sportsmen were overweight. The more advanced the sportsmen, the more overweight they were. There seemed to be no obvious differences, being overweight, between the male sportsman and the female sportsman. The endurance capacity (Wmax) amounts to an average of 202 Watt in the female athlete and 324 Watt in the male athlete. A significant correlation was found between the endurance capacity and the amount of hours spend on sporting, taken only into account the endurance and team sports. Significant negative correlations were found between the endurance capacity, age and estimated fat percentage. Verf.-Referat