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ABSTRACT
This study aims to investigate relationships between hand dominance, competition success rankings and isometric elbow and knee strength in 12 years old male novice wrestlers. For this study, body height, body weight, right and left elbow and knees' isometric flexion and extension strength measurements were taken from 379 voluntary subjects during the talent identification scouting for the Wrestling Education Centers of Turkey in 2002. A lateralization inventory was also applied to determine hand preference of novice wrestlers. To investigate the differences among variables, two-way ANOVA and t-tests were performed while correlation coefficients were also calculated between variables. Results of this study showed that finalists were taller, heavier and stronger than others. Significant strength differences were observed between right and left of elbow and knee joints regardless of handedness. Wrestling success ranking were well correlated with all strength variables not handedness. Right knee flexion strength of right handers was significantly higher than left handers while left handers had a smaller strength differences between right and left side in elbow extension and knee flexion. Although left and right handers had a very similar physical size, left handers had a symmetric strength between right and left side except knee extension while right handers had an asymmetry in all strength variables. In the selection of talented wrestlers, it is impossible to find the successful wrestlers of future by overemphasizing strength instead of psychological predisposition to wrestling and trainability in developmental stages. In sports where both of right and left arm strength have equal importance it seems very important to improve training programs for preventing asymmetric strength development in novice wrestlers.