Hand grip strength and anthropometric characteristics in Italian female National basketball team

Aim: The aim was to investigate if there is an influence of the hand dimensions on hand grip strength, if they are related to body dimensions and to define a reference scale for talent identification Methods: Female Italian basketball national players (109 subjects Under14-Seniors) were examined about anthropometric and hand strength characteristics,We measured body mass, height, hand length and breadth (ISO7250-1- 2008), maximum hand spread (five fingers’ span) (Peebles and Norris, 1998-Visnapu and Jurimae, 2007), maximal handgrip strength (Mathiowetz et al.,1985, by Jamar Hydraulic Hand dynamometer). Results: Handgrip strength trend increase, as well as age/sport level, raising the statistical significant difference only after 19 years aged players respect to younger, and for dominant (right) hand only in Seniors. It’s possible that higher values and asymmetry were induced by strength training. No differences were showed for hand length as expected, but neither for breadth anatomical measures nor for functional dimension as hand span. Furthermore, comparing stature and hand length with not athletes Italian adult females (Masali, 2013; Fubini et al., 2011), the national basketball athletes values are near the highest percentiles, but not the hand length. Moreover, body dimensions show low correlations values with handgrip strength. Conclusion: We concluded that anthropometric selection in basketball players, generally based on stature values already in young athletes, select indirectly also by hand length, but not by breadth and span, and least of all by handgrip strength. We suggest to consider hand grip strength to aid talent identification at a young age and to increase it by training.