Antropomotoryka nr 51 - Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego w ...

Puberty phase in girls – key questions in connection with sport masteryportant feature of pubescence period. In pedagogicalpractice, particularly during sporting selection and thefollowing preparation, meeting with a child is held usingpassport age and that’s why the definition of conformanceof passport and biological age is one of thecrucial questions for sports medicine, pediatrics, agespecificphysiology and for trainer as well.As Gurkin [2] underlines, unfortunately, parents,teachers and even physicians are used to focus onlyon chronological age of teenagers, whereas biological,mental and psychological reactivity is mostly definedexactly with biological age [2, 8, 13, 42]. Authors underlinethat the main complication for a physician liesin fact that biological age of girl can be lightly delayedfrom passport one or be passed ahead in pubertal period,and a physician has to decide whether such differenceis normal or it is some delay or leading in somaticdevelopment.Biological age has surely great importance, as faras it depicts the ontogenetic maturity, working capacity,character of adaptive abilities of teenager (see Fig. 1).Biological age can be defined on the base of dentalmaturity, development of the secondary sexual characters,and maturity of skeleton (a degree of ossificationof wrist, hand and forearm of left hand – radiography,densitometry).Physiological features are characterized by the expressedinstability of mechanisms of an endocrine andvegetative regulation that conditions the lability of somaticfunctions. As a result the decrease of endurancefor physical loads, increase of the vulnerability to mentalfactors are very typical for teenage girls. Tobacco smoking,alcohol, toxic substances harm girl’s organism muchstronger than the organism of adult woman [2, 13, 26].With reference to girls in pubertal period specialistsin the teenage endocrinology [2, 8, 18] have observedthat in girls in pubertal period (of the same passportage) particular body length not always goes with thespecific stage of pubescence (from II to IV). Thereforea physician of any specialty is highly recommended tocheck the correspondence of an individual biologic ageof a girl to her passport age characteristics while evaluatingphysiological maturity.Due to acceleration of tempo of physical and sexualmaturity, when it happens during 2–3 years, the biggerprevalence of the arterial hypertension, functionalabnormalities of internals are observed in girls of thatkind as compared to the population.Abnormalities of the musculoskeletal system areoften more evident in the developing of scoliosis, platypodiaand osteochondropathia [2, 9].Emotional instability, hypercriticism and oppositionto adults, demonstrative striving for independence,manifestation of sensivity and staleness to peoplearound are typical for this teenage period. Ignoring thepsychological features of teenagers leads the adults tomisunderstand what hinders the optimal psychologicalmaturation of girls by possible complications in theirhealth and social communication [2, 8].Teenage girls are characterized with high emotionalityand rapid change of behavior. But after the age of13–14 years psychological processes have emotionaldetermineddirection. Attention, perception and memoryreach the highest level.During the growth and development of an organismthe pubertal period in boys is more prolonged ascompared to girls’ one, the pubertal leap of growth isstrongly pronounced.Criteria of evaluation of biological age of teenagersphysiologacalsomaticalmorphologicalsexualFigure 1. Biological age of teenagers – criteria of evaluation– 101 –