level of female volleyball teams, an increase in endomorphic
and mesomorphic components and a decrease
in ectomorphic component were observed. The highest
values of endomorphic and mesomorphic components
together with the lowest value of ectomorphic
component were observed in somatotype of female
volleyball teams that play at amateur level. Female
volleyball players in our study had similar mean
somatotype profile (4.9-3.5-2.5) to the somatotype of
Italian amateur volleyball players (4.7-3.9-2.3) studied
by Viviani and Baldin [30]. Female athletes examined
by us had too high values of endomorphy and mesomorphy
as well as too low values of ectomorphy when
compared to the highest level (A1 leaque) female
volleyball players from Greece [6] and from Italy [4],
who had somatotypes 3.2-2.4-3.2 and 2.9-3.1-3.0, respectively.
This lack of homogeneity of body build
among the elite volleyball players, and occurrence of
significant differences among athletes of different playing
positions is interpreted as the result of varying