Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 May;51(5):1055-1063.
doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001864.

Sex-Specific Longitudinal Modeling of Short-Term Power in 11- to 18-Year-Olds

Neil Armstrong  1 , J O Welsman
Affiliations

Sex-Specific Longitudinal Modeling of Short-Term Power in 11- to 18-Year-Olds

Neil Armstrong et al. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2019 May.

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate, longitudinally, short-term power output in relation to sex and concurrent changes in age, body mass, fat-free mass (FFM), and maturity status.

Methods: Multiplicative multilevel modeling which enables the effects of variables to be partitioned concurrently within an allometric framework was used to analyze the peak power (PP) and mean power (MP) of 388 11- to 18-yr-olds. Multilevel models were founded on 763 (405 from boys; 358 from girls) determinations of PP and MP from Wingate anaerobic tests, supported by anthropometric measures and maturity status.

Results: In both sexes, PP and MP were significantly (P < 0.001) correlated with age, body mass, and FFM. After controlling for body mass, initial models showed positive effects for age on PP and MP, with negative effects for sex and a sex by age interaction. Sex-specific models showed maturity status to have no additional effect on either PP or MP once age and body mass had been controlled for. Skinfold thicknesses in addition to body mass to provide a surrogate for FFM, yielded a significantly (P < 0.05) better statistical fit in all models compared with those based on either body mass or FFM estimated from youth-specific skinfold equations. Models founded on estimated FFM provided a significantly (P < 0.05) better fit than those based on body mass.

Conclusions: With body mass controlled for boys' PP and MP are higher than those of girls and sex differences increase with age from 11 to 18 yr. A multilevel modeling approach has showed that in both sexes the most powerful influences on short-term power output are concurrent changes in age and FFM as reflected by the combination of body mass and skinfold thicknesses.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Peak power and MP in boys in relation to age (A), body mass (B), and estimated FFM (C), Data are from 405 WAnT determinations of 11- to 18-yr-old boys’ peak power and MP. FFM is estimated from youth-specific equations (16).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Peak power and MP in girls in relation to age (A), body mass (B), and estimated FFM (C), Data are from 358 WAnT determinations of 11- to 18-yr-old girls’ peak power and MP. FFM is estimated from youth-specific equations (16).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Inbar O, Bar-Or O, Skinner JS. The Wingate Anaerobic Test. Champaign: Human Kinetics; 1996. pp. 76.
    1. Bar-Or O. Noncardiopulmonary pediatric exercise tests. In: Rowland TW, editor. Pediatric Laboratory Exercise Testing. Champaign: Human Kinetics; 1993. pp. 165–85.
    1. Dotan R, Bar-Or O. Load optimization for the Wingate anaerobic test. Eur J Appl Physiol. 1983;51:409–17. - PubMed
    1. Santos AMC, Welsman JR, De Ste Croix MBA, Armstrong N. Age-and sex-related differences in optimal peak power. Pediatr Exerc Sci. 2002;14:202–12.
    1. Inbar O, Bar-Or O. The effects of intermittent warm-up on 7–9 year-old boys. Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1975;34:81–9. - PubMed

Publication types