SOMATOTYPE OF ITALIAN RUGBY PLAYERS

Our aim was to collect lacking first-hand data on Italian rugby player s. The Heath/Carter anthropometric somatotype method was applied to 28 ''A'' League performers (RP) aged 25+/-3.9 years of age. Their somato types and dimensions were compared with those found in previous studie s on athletes involved in the same sporting activity, with data collec ted on 25 ''sedentary'' young Italians, and with Bailey et al.'s study on Canadians (1982). On average, the RP group resulted as being endom orphic mesomorphs (3.1+/-1.1 - 5.6+/-1.3 - 1.4+/-1.1), a result that i s congruent with international data. They differed significantly from the balanced mesomorph CG (2.3+/-1.0 - 4.5+/-1.2 - 2.5+/-1.4) for all the measurements taken, apart from bi-epycondylar width. The peculiar somatotype scores found are congruent with the needs of rugby, an aero bic-anaerobic discipline which requires performers with great muscular power associated with a capacity to furnish energy, mainly through th e anaerobic metabolism.