The effect of body measurements on success in mixed martial arts
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Anthropology, Anatomy and Physiology, Statistics
- Keywords
- combat sports, MMA, stature, success, ape ratio
- Copyright
- © 2016 Kirk
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. The effect of body measurements on success in mixed martial arts. PeerJ Preprints 4:e1892v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1892v2
Abstract
Whilst most anthropometrical research within sport has focussed on muscle and fat distribution, more studies are measuring the relationship between stature and wingspan, which has been found to be selective criteria in many sports. In this study the stature, wingspan and stature-to-wingspan ratio (S:W) was recorded for N = 474 elite and international mixed martial arts (MMA) competitors who appeared in televised bouts over the course of one calendar year. Each weight division was split into three or four ranking groups (RG) depending on division size. One-way ANOVA (≤0.05) found that shorter competitors are ranked higher in flyweight and in the middle in women’s straw weight. Independent t-tests (≤0.05) found that shorter competitors also have more chance of winning or competing for a world title in featherweight and flyweight. Overall, whilst MMA competitors have a S:W of 1:1.024, due to thepaucity of significant differences found, it was determined that anthropometrical measurements cannot be used to predict success in elite and international mixed martial arts.
Author Comment
Data edited, findings removed and discussion shortened to reflect changes in data and alterations of overall findings