Evaluation of Selected Anthropometric Characteristics Physical Fitness and Athletic Performance of RDT Hockey Academy adapted Schoolgirls in the Rayalasema District of Andhra Pradesh

: This investigation was purported to evaluate the selected anthropometric characteristics physical fitness and athletic performance of schoolgirls adapted by RDT hockey academy in the Rayalasema district of Andhra Pradesh, India. For this reason, 547 schoolgirls from twenty-six (26) schools in four (4) different districts adapted by RDT hockey academy in the Rayalasema District of Andhra Pradesh, India were considered as subjects. These subjects were in the age group of 11 to 16 years, and they were assessed for their selected anthropometric characteristics (height, weight), physical fitness (speed, explosive power) and athletic performance (100m dash) using standardized tests and procedures. The data collected were subjected to statistical analysis by means of One-way ANOVA, and Bonferroni corrections post hoc test. The confidence interval was fixed at p<0.05 in all cases. The research findings ensure statistically considerable age difference on selected variables, and it implies that age differences influence almost all fitness parameters. adapted by RDT hockey academy spread across the district of Rayalasema, Andhra Pradesh, India. The selected subjects were tested for their anthropometric characteristics ( height and weight ), physical fitness ( speed and explosive power ) and athletic performance ( 100m dash ) using standardized tests and procedures. The data collected were subjected to statistical analysis by means of One-way ANOVA, and Bonferroni corrections post hoc test. The confidence interval was fixed at p < 0.05 in all cases.


Introduction
In India, for centuries of years from Vedic age to till date, the gurukuls and schools have played a vital role in the provision of physical activity to children and youth. Now a day, physical education is a mandated part of the school curriculum that too particularly in the State of Andhra Pradesh, India, and it is obligatory to assess and report the level of school student's fitness. The educational aspects of physical education are to develop the knowledge, behavioral skills, and motor skills necessary to develop and maintain a physically active and healthy lifestyle. As such, the priority for physical education is seen as providing opportunities for students to engage in enjoyable physical activity, to become physically fit, and to learn generalizable motor and behavioral skills (McKenzie, 2003). Yet, participation in physical education was reduced by substitutions of other activities for physical education and student exemptions.
Partaking in games and sports has long been assumed to provide health benefits to young players. In spite of certain reservations about this conjecture, the studies of some (Rossi et al., 2004;Skolnick, 1993;Aaron et al., 1995) have shown that health benefits accrue to young people who participate in sports.
Customarily, the role of schools in providing and promoting physical activity has been during the school day and on the school campus immediately after school hours. Although there have been exceptions, school-based programs usually have been sponsored by the schools themselves and supervised by school employees. However, enormous potential appears to exist for schools to expand their role in providing students with additional physical activity by building institutional relationships with community-based providers of physical activity. Such relationships could manifest in several ways. Schools can make their facilities available to community based organizations during after-school, weekend, and summer vacation. Also, schools can collaborate with community organizations in promoting physical activity programs to students and their parents. Because transportation can be a barrier to students' participation in after-school programs, schools can collaborate with community organizations, including transit authorities, to ensure that students have the opportunity to participate in programs beyond the school day.
Although school-community linked physical activity programs offer much promise, little research has addressed the efficacy of such initiatives for increasing physical activity in children and youth. The nurturing of young players was carried out by Rural Development Trust (RDT), an NGO based in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, India. RDT Hockey academy benefited many young players across Andhra Pradesh, by adapting the students of various schools. Thereby, an attempt was made to record and report the selected anthropometric characteristics physical fitness and athletic performance of schoolgirls of different ages adapted by RDT hockey academy in the Rayalasema district of Andhra Pradesh.

Methodology
In this study, five hundred and forty-seven (547) female school students, aged 11 to 16 years were selected as subjects, at random from the schools adapted by RDT hockey academy spread across the district of Rayalasema, Andhra Pradesh, India. The selected subjects were tested for their anthropometric characteristics (height and weight), physical fitness (speed and explosive power) and athletic performance (100m dash) using standardized tests and procedures. The data collected were subjected to statistical analysis by means of One-way ANOVA, and Bonferroni corrections post hoc test. The confidence interval was fixed at p < 0.05 in all cases.

Results
The data on height, weight, speed, explosive power, and 100m dash were analysed for statistical significant age difference using one-way ANOVA. Thereafter, post hoc tests were performed using Bonferroni corrections. All those results were tabulated in tables from 1 through 3. The descriptive statistics depicted in Table 1 reveals that all the variables confined to this study improved with age of the schoolgirls. However, the height, weight, power, and 100m dash of the schoolgirls were slightly impinged at the age of 16 years, which might be the result of academic stress, lack of motivation, sports performance saturation, gain in body mass, so on and so forth that needs to be investigated further.  Table 2 shows that statistically significant difference exists between different ages on height, weight, speed, explosive power, and 100m dash performance as the obtained F (5, 540) is 27.742, 41.669, 2.760, 6.320 and 6.175 respectively , (p < 0.05). Since, six different age categories were considered in this study, the statistical analysis was further continued to post hoc test using Bonferroni corrections to find out the paired mean differences, and it was given Table 3.  Table 3, it is understood that most of the paired mean differences on height and weight varied between ages. It is also found that the adjacent age categories didn't vary considerably between them with regard to explosive power, while the speed and 100m dash performance of the girls aged 14 to 16 years were not good enough as it is supposed to be.
In this study, school girls were grouped by chronological age, irrespective of their biological development, so some misclassification for children and adolescents in relation to their biological development may occur. Therefore, it is of interest to examine the associations between health-related physical fitness components and biological age in young girls.

Conclusion
The findings of this study reveal that older girls are taller and heavier, which ensures that the growth and development process were not hindered by means of systematic training program adopted in the RDT hockey academy. Per se, physical fitness and performance variables are generally higher in older girls. But, the result of this study necessitates rigorous training regimen for improving the physical fitness status of girls with regard to their age, as the fitness parameters and athletic performance level were not evidently varied among age categories of schoolgirls adapted by the hockey academy.