Abstract This study aimed to present a survey with the reference values from 254 Brazilian male judokas hand grip strength according to their age, weight class and performance during a State Judo Championship. Data were collected during the weighing-in (critical moment) with a Jamal hand grip apparatus and the mass was measured with the official federation scale. As expected, the semifinalists showed higher strength values but such difference was not significant to suggest a tendency that maximal static strength per si should be able to influence the tournament results, regarding their age and weight class. While comparing ages, significant difference (p<0.05) was found through factor univariate ANOVA. Post Hoc test have shown significant increases in strength from the pre-juvenile age judokas to juvenile and also from juvenile until junior age judokas. However no difference was found between junior and senior judokas. According to these differences, three homogeneous groups were formed. Their values describe a similar curve to those that represent the general, muscle or even mass growth. These significant gains in strength among male judokas from 13 until 19 years old suggest that strength training should start in these ages. Despite of the discussion presented by MAIA & LOPES (2001) this seems to be a sensitive or critical period for strength training in agreement to Russian studies (FILIN & VOLKOV, 1998). As long as strength training plays an essential role in judokas preparation, it should be included in the training process mainly on adolescence since the age of 13 following the guidelines of American Academy of Pediatrics (2001). One of the mathematical models presented in this research may help to determine the strength training loads regarding the growth process, where: HG = 3, x (mass) - 0, x (mass)2 + 0, x (mass)3 - 51, r= 0,73; r2= 0,53; SEE= 13,5807 Key words: Judo, growth, strength training, handgrip Mauro Cesar Gurgel de Alencar Carvalho (1, 2, 3, 8) João Paulo Dubas (4, 5) Julio Cesar do Prado (1, 6, 7) Felipe Leal de Paiva Carvalho (1, 3) Estélio Henrique Martin Dantas (3) Gerson Gomes Cunha (8) Luis Landau (8) Alexandre Janotta Drigo (1, 9) Paulo Henrique Silva Marques de Azevedo (1, 10) (1) JUDÔjo – Grupo de estudos e pesquisas de Judô (2) Colégio Pedro II (RJ) (3) LABIMH – Universidade Castelo Branco (RJ) (4) Universidade Santa Cecília (5) Escola Paulista de Medicina – UFSP (6) Colégio LaSalle – Manaus – AM (7) Centro de Treinamento de Alto Rendimento / Região Norte (8) LAMCE – PEC – COPPE – Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (9) FEF – UNICAMP (10) Universidade Federal de São Carlos ou Introduction The first scientific papers about Judo started to be published in the late 50's by the Japaneses, but only after the 60's the evaluations on judokas were more frequent, and tried to characterize the judokas' profiles and predict their sport performance [1]. Japanese hand grip studies among their national team begun since 1969 [2, 3, 4]. In this area of evaluation and control of the training process, muscle strength is one of the main components of general physical preparation and essential for Judo [5, 6]. Bompa [7] says that “it improves performance and the execution of many sport skills”. Periodical muscle strength evaluations allow: “to classify students, determine their actual condition, measure their progress, and present more objective ways to test, measure and evaluate their results, identify talents and predict performance” [8]. Hand grip strength is an important measure to predict performance among teenagers when associated with push-ups test and seated medicineball throw [9], however it does not have relation to performance when it is analysed alone [10]. Some studies has dealt with hand grip strength in Judo [11, 12, 13, 14], as did Thomas et al. [15] have shown the profile of Canadian Judo team, however they didn’t present the results respecting the weight class characteristics as did Pregnolatto et al. [16] and Nunes et al. [17]. So, there is a need to present such strength profile among competitor judokas respecting their ages and weight classes. Objectives: To present the hand grip strength profile of competitor judokas according to their ages and weight classes. To compare the different ages. To compare semifinalists against non-semifinalists. Material and methods 254 competitor judokas, who were previously classified to compete in the State Championship were measured immediately after the weigh-in moment. The Jamar instrument was used to take a single measure of the right and left hand grip strength and their sum was calculated. This one trial measure procedure was already validated [18] and applied in this study due to the judokas’ anxiety level and the lack of time and space to perform the regular used three trials. Results and Discussion The hand grip profiles shown in the table below present the first attempting among Brazilian male judokas according to their ages and weight classes. Conclusions A male competitor judoka hand grip profile was established. The results presented in this study showed muscle strength increases at the same sensitive periods for strength training as Russian sports literature reports. This may indicate that muscle strength training should be potentialized during adolescence to reach higher levels during the adult ages. Curve regressions models were developed to predict hand grip strength according to body mass.This may help coaches to establish and control strength training needs and increases during the studied ages. Ῐ JUDOKAS’ HAND GRIP STRENGTH STUDY, ACCORDING TO AGE, Ῐ WEIGHT CLASS AND CHAMPIONSHIP PERFORMANCE Pewrformance SeniorJuniorJuvenilePre-juvenile averagesdnaveragesdnaveragesdnaveragesdn superSemifinalist83 193, ,54,952 ligeiroNon-semifinalist9116,2584,310, Total89,714,8687,111,110 48,38,023 ligeiroSemifinalist ,314, Non-semifinalist95,524,829313,6675,34,997462,832 Total97,717,9392,112,67758, ,893 midSemifinalist1001, lightNon-semifinalist89,39,936106,210,5582,18,361055,38,023 Total929,758106,210,5580,97,961355,38,023 lightSemifinalist ,313,6491,37,573 Non-semifinalist104,511,361087,97590,54, Total104,110,37105,410,5990,64, midSemifinalist ,56, middleNon-semifinalist106,116,87106,416,4892,89, ,242 Total106,315,68106,416,4893,59,131356,36,513 middleSemifinalist105,53, , , Non-semifinalist113,79,747107,311,9797,812,713708,492 Total111,99,279110, ,817716,253 midSemifinalist1281,412123,83,59495,7243 heavyNon-semifinalist115,513,46114, ,79,38994,413,25 Total118,612,88117,714,111102,413,61294,413,25 heavySemifinalist12931,12118, , Non-semifinalist122,413,35119,615,310102,212,510758,492 Total124, ,414, ,61382,714,63 superSemifinalist 798,492 heavyNon-semifinalist 83,38,388 Total 82,48,1110 The exploratory analysis performed alloed the application of ANOVA for age and performance comparisons. ANOVA has shown significant differences between ages where the variability of data may explain 31% of such difference. There was no significant difference between levels of performance. The applied model has a strong power. Scheffe’s post hoc test was performed and shoed were the differences have fallen. Scheffe’s homogeneous grouping test showed that three different groups were formed where significant increases of strength were found during the puberty as well as the studies that Filin & Volkov showed [19]. So strength training should be encouraged within these ages. This increases have show a similar curve to growth curve, so curve models to predict strength by body mass was developed. 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