Motor Abilities in Physically Active and Inactive School Adolescents Aged 13-15 Years: A Comparative Study

Accumulating at least 60 min of physical activity every day is health-beneficial and will contribute to development of motor abilities. The objective was to compare some motor abilities of physically active [N=42; (24 boys & 18 girls)] and inactive [N=55; (24 boys & 31 girls)] school adolescents at the age of 13-15 years: (1) abdominal muscle strength; (2) lower back muscle strength; (3) upper limbs muscle strength; (4) lower limbs muscle strength; and (5) explosive leg power. The PAQ-C questionnaire was applied to evaluate the level of physical (in)activity. A cut-off value of 2.73 was set to categorize children as inactive (<2.73) and physically active (≥2.73), as suggested by Benitez-Porres et al. (2016). Student’s t-test was applied in order to compare motor abilities between physically active and inactive adolescents. Findings of the present study indicate that physically active adolescents have higher upper limbs muscle strength and explosive leg power than inactive adolescents. No significant differences were observed in abdominal muscle strength, lower back muscle strength and lower limbs muscle strength, between physically active and inactive school adolescents aged 13-15 years. We believe that specifically tailored exercise interventions with an appropriate frequency, intensity, and volume might be necessary in order to induce higher and more significant changes in all segments of the motor abilities spectrum.