females, athletes, body fat, fat free mass, sports performance

The objective of the study was to verify the significance of somatic parameters as performance factorsin volleyball. The study included a total of 164 females. Thirty-nine females (age 23.4?2.8 years) were elitevolleyball players (G1), 45 (age 23.7?3.7 years) were amateur volleyball players (G2), and 80 (age 22.7?1.3years) were females from the general population (G3) and represented the control group. The measuredparameters included the following: body height; body mass; body fat and its segmental analysis; total body waterand its components, extracellular water (ECW) and intracellular water (ICW); and fat free mass and itscomponents, body cell mass (BCM), extracellular mass (ECM), and skeletal muscle mass (SMM). To assess thedifferences in body composition, values between the test groups, standardized changes in the means (effect size,ES) and 90% confidence limits (90% CL) were used. In female players of a higher performance level, moreappropriate values of body composition parameters in terms of performance were observed. The differencesbetween G1 and G2 were moderate to large. With increasing player performance, the differences in valuesincreased relative to the values of the G3 control group. An exception to this finding was the absence of adifference in the basic anthropometric parameters (BH, BM) between G1 and G2 players. The results of thestudy confirmed that body composition parameters were part of the structure of sports performance in volleyball.Key words: females, athletes, body fat, fat free mass, sports performance.