Handgrip strength in university softball players is significantly correlated with body height, hand width, body mass, and hand length, which may be useful for talent identification and targeted training.
Correlations of handgrip strength with selected hand-anthropometric variables in university softball players Study aim : To assess the handgrip strength in Indian university softball players as dependent on selected hand-anthropometric variables. Material and methods : Indian university softball players (121 males and 122 females) and untrained controls (98 males and 102 females) aged 18 - 25 years participated in the study. The following variables were recorded: body height and mass, BMI, right hand width and length, lengths of the right 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th digits and right handgrip strength. Results : One-way ANOVA showed significant differences (p<0.05 - 0.001) in all the characteristics studied, except body height, right hand length and right 2 nd digit length among these four sets of data. The right handgrip strength was significantly correlated (p<0.01 - 0.001) with all the variables studied. Both in male and female softball players, the partition of R 2 into the contributions of individual independent variables revealed that body height (18%), hand width (11%), body mass (8%) and hand length (5%) significantly contributed to the total variance (44%) of handgrip strength. Conclusions : The data might be useful in selecting players and in talent identification for softball.
Koley et al. (Sat,) studied this question.