FEMALE MILITARY PENTATHLON ATHLETES WITH BETTER BODYCOMPOSITION PRESENTS BETTER MODALITY PERFORMANCE

ABSTRACT The recent increase of the women working for the military forces augments the need for studies that aim to optimize the selection and training of Brazilian athletes. The aim of the present study was to determine the anthropometric characteristics of female Military Pentathlon Army team, and identify which variables present the best values within the best performance athletes group. We collected anthropometric and performance data (selective for the 6th Military World Games) from five athletes of female Military Pentathlon Army team and data were analized by cluster analysis. It has been detected two groups in terms of body composition: one composed by the athletes with the highest fat free mass values and arm muscle circumference, as well as smaller sum of skinfold values and fat percentage which also composed the group of top athletic performance athletes. This fact was not observed for body size variables.