O papel da maturação na performance de velocidade em tiro de 50 metros: apontamentos sobre o bio-banding para o atletismo infantojuvenil

Abstract

Growth and biological maturation exert a decisive influence on physical and motor performance during childhood and adolescence, potentially generating substantial differences between young people of the same chronological age. These variations directly impact performance in sports such as athletics, especially in sprint events, as well as influencing physical tests, sports selection processes, and the organization of competitions, particularly when groups with different training levels are compared. In this context, strategies such as bio-banding (BB), which groups young people according to their maturational stage, have been proposed as alternatives to reduce inequalities and promote fairer development environments. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between somatic maturation and child and adolescent performance in an modified athletics sprint event (50-metre dash) competition for children and adolescents, discussing points applicable to the use of BB in athletics. To answer this objective, the dissertation was developed using an alternative model and divided into 3 studies. The first study consisted of a literature review on BB. The evidence gathered demonstrated that this strategy can reduce physical inequalities, increase technical and tactical opportunities for less mature young people, and promote more equitable teaching and selection processes. The other two studies were empirical investigations, conducted with schoolchildren and young athletes, one study with a male population and the other with a female population. In these studies, the association between maturational indicators, such as distance to peak growth velocity (dPVC) and standardized z-score (Z-PVC), with performance in the 50-meter sprint was evaluated. The results showed that in both studies, maturation has a more evident impact on schoolchildren and a reduced influence on trained athletes, indicating that training tends to attenuate initial maturational advantages, although the strong association between chronological age and maturational data in the study sample indicates that it is not possible to state that somatic maturation is the sole factor associated with performance. Taken together, the findings of this dissertation reinforce that biological maturation is an important component for interpreting child and youth performance and that strategies sensitive to developmental differences, such as BB, can contribute to more balanced formative and competitive environments, contributing to discussions on the centrality of competitive division in athletics based on chronological ages grouped in intervals of more than one year.