Kyushu Bunka Gakuen High School, the 11-time Japanese national girls volleyball champion which will play Sports Performance 18 Elite on Wednesday night, was once at the center of one of the most self-evident research studies known to man.
According to this abstract, 24 girls volleyball players from KBG were studied over the course of 11 months during 1988 and 1989. They were tested for body fat percentage, cardiorespiratory function, body composition and skin fold measurement.
Those results were compared to those of 16 players from another local school that had "second-class players." (In your face Nagasaki Prefecture!)
The result was the elite players at Kyushu Bunka Gakuen tested out better than the "second-class" players at shameful Nagasaki Prefecture.
Also, the elite high school volleyball players had similar body fat percentage and cardio respiratory function to those of the Japan League and All-Japan volleyball players.
The take-away message from the study was that the good volleyball players were similar in body type and athletic ability as the best players and the country, and the good players were more capable and more fit than the bad players.
Clearly this was something science needed to verify for us.
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