Identification of Essential Anthropometric, Fitness, and Motor Ability Parameters for Youth Badminton Performance

In this chapter, we applied principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation to examine the underlying structure of anthropometric, fitness, and motor parameters in youth badminton players. The analysis identified six principal components that explained 65.2% of the total variance, with component variables selected based on factor loadings of 0.70 or greater. The six key components were interpreted as “anthropometric attributes”, “lower body morphology and stature”, “dynamic power and static core endurance”, “leg muscular endurance”, “motor control and stability”, and “trunk and upper body endurance”. The assumption checks confirmed the suitability of the data for PCA, with a significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity (p < 0.001) and an acceptable overall Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy of 0.701. These six components, encompassing 12 essential variables, provide a concise and comprehensive model for characterising the necessary anthropometric, physical fitness, and motor ability parameters for performance of youth badminton players.