A Study on Somatotype Classification of Muscular Men's Lower Body

The purpose of this research is to understand the physiological characteristics of muscular men between the ages of 20 and 34 years who are distinct from the general population due to their muscular development, and to categorize them according to upper body somatotypes. This research was conducted in order to provide basic data necessary for developing clothing products for muscular men. The research method and results were as follows: 1. The study carried out factor analysis with the body measuring value of 168 muscular men according to the body classification method of Sheldon and Heath-Carter. The study materialized muscular men's lower body types statistically by carrying out cluster analysis, regarding scores of each factor extracted from the factor analysis as an independent variable. The study also carried out discriminant analysis with the results of cluster analysis classified so that morphological characters of each type were remarkably distinguished. 2. As the results of factor analysis, the study set up number of factors as three. Factor 1 occupied 38.149% of the total variables as a size factor of the lower body. Factor 2 occupied 20.417% of the total variables as a height and length factor of the lower body. Factor 3 occupied 8.466% of the total variables as a length factor of the hip. 3. The study classified the lower body type into three types and the characteristics by each type were as follows. Type 1 was a group with the best developed muscle in the lower of the body, considering that a size of their lower bodies was the largest. Type 2 was well-balanced muscular males though a size of the lower body was smaller than other types. This type didn't have fatness of the abdomen and large hips. Type 3 was a body type that the length from the waist to the hip was long. 4. As the results of carrying out discriminant analysis to distinguish muscular men's lower body types, the discriminant accuracy was 86.3% over all in the lower bodies.