ASSOCIATION BETWEEN BODY COMPOSITION AND CARDIORESPIRATORY FITNESS OF ADOLESCENTS

With the aim to investigate the association between body composition of adolescents and cardiorespiratory fitness, this research was carried out on a sample of seventh grade primary school students (38 female and 44 male students). The sample of measuring instruments for body composition assessment were: body mass index, triceps, subscapularis and suprailiac subcutaneous adipose tissue, body fat percentage, muscle mass percentage and fat-free mass. The “Beep” test was used for the assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness. At the multivariate level the results have shown that body composition, as a system predictor, explained 51% (p= .000) of variance of cardiorespiratory fitness of the total sample of students, 29% (p= .021) of the girls and 51% (p= .000) of the boys. At the univariate level of the total sample it was noticed that the sum of three skinfolds (t= -4.91; p= .000) and fat-free mass (t= 4.54; p= .000) had a high influence on system prediction. The sum of three skinfolds in the total sample, sample of girls and sample of boys had a negative impact on cardiorespiratory fitness. For the girls, body fat percentage had a positive impact on cardiorespiratory fitness, while in the total sample and sample of boys, fat-free mass had a positive impact on cardiorespiratory fitness. It could be concluded that the association between body composition components and VO2max was clearly demonstrated in adolescents.