The purpose of the present study was to estimate the back strength of elite Indian cyclists and its correlations with selected anthropometric traits and physical performance tests. To solve this problem, seven anthropometric traits viz. height, weight, BMI, total lower extremity length, buttack to knee length, lower leg length and foot length, three physical performance tests viz. sit and reach test, standing broad jump test and vertical jump test, and back strength were measured on randomly selected 57 elite Indian cyclists (31 males and 26 females) aged 18–24 years (mean 20.21 years, ± 2.11) from six Indian universities, competition was held in Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab, India. An adequate number of controls (n = 63, 35 males and 28 females, mean 20.28 years, ± 2.14) were also taken from the same place for comparisons. The results indicated statistically significant differences (p<0.05 - 0.001) between Indian male and female cyclists with their control counterparts,(except weight in male cyclists and controls and height, BMI, lower leg length and foot length between female cyclists and controls) as well as between the two sexes of the cyclists. One way analysis of variance showed significant between-group differences (p ≤ 0.001) in all the variables studied between the cyclists and controls. In conclusion, it may be stated that back strength had some strong positive correlations (p< 0.01) with all the variables studied in elite Indian cyclists.
