Assessment of the physical development of pre-school and primary school children practising artistic gymnastics
Journal of Sport Science (‘Спорт и Наука’), issue 4, 106–115 · Originally published in Bulgarian
Looking beyond BMI in young athletes.
Physical-development assessment can help coaches adapt training to the individual child. Height, body mass and BMI are accessible measures, but BMI cannot distinguish fat mass from muscle mass. That distinction may be particularly important in sports such as artistic gymnastics, where athletes repeatedly support and move their own body weight.
This study examined whether accessible anthropometric and strength measures could provide a more informative assessment of pre-school and primary-school children practising gymnastics.
When BMI suggests that a young gymnast is overweight, do body-fat and strength measures provide important additional context?
One assessment combining growth, body composition and strength.
The researchers assessed 40 children attending artistic-gymnastics classes at Sports Centre Levski in Sofia, Bulgaria.
This was a cross-sectional assessment rather than a training intervention. The measurements describe the children at the time of testing.
Young artistic gymnasts
The overall sample comprised 22 boys and 18 girls aged 4–12 years. Children were considered by school-age group and, for an experience-based comparison, by gymnastics experience.
Growth and body composition
Height, body mass, BMI, upper-arm circumference and two skinfolds were measured. WHO software provided age-related Z-scores and percentiles; skinfolds were used to estimate body-fat percentage and upper-arm muscle area.
Left and right handgrip
Maximal isometric grip strength was measured for both hands using three attempts with a child handgrip dynamometer. The analysis included analysis of variance and Student’s t-test.
BMI did not tell the whole story.
Body-fat estimates and upper-arm muscle area helped distinguish between children who shared a similar BMI classification but had different body-composition profiles.
Seven children were above +1 Z-score
Seven participants had BMI-for-age Z-scores between +1 and +2. Figure 1 reported no children below −2 or above +2.
The same BMI range did not mean the same thing
Two more-experienced boys in the seven-child group had estimated body-fat values of 11.7% and 13.7%. The authors did not consider their higher BMI to represent excess body fat.
Upper-arm muscle area
In the experience-based comparison of primary-school boys, estimated upper-arm muscle area was higher in the more-experienced competitor group: 23.7 cm² versus 20.5 cm² (p < 0.05).
Left and right handgrip
Across the reported age groups, the study found no statistically significant difference between left- and right-hand grip strength.
Other experience-group measures
Body mass, BMI and grip strength were slightly higher in the more-experienced boys, but these differences were not reported as statistically significant.
Use several measures together
The authors concluded that BMI should be interpreted alongside body-fat, muscularity and strength measures when assessing child athletes with greater muscle mass.
A broader assessment can provide better context.
The practical message is not to discard BMI, but to avoid interpreting it in isolation. For a young athlete, estimated body fat, muscularity, strength, age, sex and training background may materially change how the same BMI value is understood.
Individualise the assessment
Accessible measurements can help coaches and appropriately qualified practitioners build a more complete picture of physical development. Repeated assessment over time may be more useful than a single isolated value.
What constrains the result
- This was a small, cross-sectional study from one gymnastics centre, with no non-gymnast control group.
- The wide age range and small sex- and experience-based subgroups limit generalisation.
No diagnosis or causal claim
- The study does not prove that gymnastics caused the observed muscularity or grip pattern.
- It does not show that BMI is useless for all young athletes.
- Its results do not provide individual dietary, medical or training advice for a child.
Read and cite the paper.
The official paper was published in Bulgarian. A complete English translation is provided separately for accessibility.
Kolimechkov, S., Petrov, L., Ilinova, B., Alexandrova, A., Andreeva, L., & Atanasov, P. (2013). Assessment of the physical development of pre-school and primary school children practising artistic gymnastics. Journal of Sport Science (‘Спорт и Наука’), issue 4, 106–115.