Table 1.

Characteristics of national-level female artistic gymnasts, acrobatic gymnasts (training as “tops”), and non-athletes^a

	ARG (n = 10)	ACG (n = 10)	Non-athletes (n = 10)
Age (years)	11.1 ± 1.29; 10–13	11.3 ± 0.67; 10–12	10.8 ± 0.79; 10–12
Body height (cm)*	139.8 ± 5.85; 132–150	132.5 ± 5.23; 124–140	146.5 ± 6.43; 136–155
Body mass (kg)**	29.6 ± 3.6; 24–35.5	26.9 ± 4.31; 20–34	36.2 ± 4.82; 29–41.5
BMI percentile***	13.2 ± 9.0; 3–27	17.3 ± 16.69; 0–49	39 ± 24.14; 9–84
Maturity offset	−1.1 ± 1.00; −2.1-0.5	− 1.4 ± 0.52; (− 2.3) - (− 0.8)	−1 ± 0.75; − 2-0.1
Gymnastics experience (years)****	4.8 ± 0.92; 4–6	3.3 ± 0.67; 2–4	0
Training frequency (hours/week)*****	12.5 ± 0; 12.5	9.1 ± 1.45; 7–10	0

ARG artistic gymnasts, ACG acrobatic gymnasts

^a Data are presented as means ± standard deviations; ranges

*ARG vs ACG: p = 0.01, r _ES = 0.54; ARG vs non-athletes: p = 0.02, r _ES = 0.5; ACG vs non-athletes: p = 0.00004, r _ES = 0.81. **ARG vs non-athletes: p = 0.007, r _ES = 0.59; ACG vs non-athletes: p = 0.0007, r _ES = 0.7. ***ARG vs non-athletes: p = 0.001, r _ES = 0.69; ACG vs non-athletes: p = 0.04, r _ES = 0.46. ****ARG vs ACG: p = 0.002, r _ES = 0.72. *****ARG vs ACG: p = 0.00001, r _ES = 0.93 (Mann-Whitney U test)