Rules changes made by the FIVB (Fédération Internationale de Volleyball) in 2001 (reduction of the court and new score system) has increased the importance of game actions such as the attack and the block (FIVB,2001; Ronglan and Grydeland, 2006). Analyzing FIVB World Tour players, Tili & Giatsis (2011) found that after the changes blockers were significantly larger, while the defenders did not show significant increases. The purpose of this paper was to verify the effect of these rules changes in the height of Brazilian men beach volleyball players in relation to specialization. The sample included the winners of Brazilian CBV (Brazilian Volleyball Confederation) in seasons 1991 to 2011 (Tournaments in 9x9m court, n=32 players; Tournaments in 8x8m court, n=28 players). The winners were categorized in relation to court dimensions (9x9m court and 8x8m court) and their specialization: defenders (DE), blockers (BL) and without any specialization (NS). Data was collect in 2011 from the official site of the Brazilian Volleyball Confederation (www.cbv.com.br). One-way Anova and Post-hoc Dunnett C tests were performed to find differences in the winners` height in relation to their specialization and the court dimensions. The Post Hoc tests indicated significant differences (F (5.53) = 112. 48, p<0.001) between the DE9x9, DE8x8, BL9x9, BL8x8, NS9x9 and NS8x8 (see Table 1). In sum, these results show that, after reduction of the court dimensions (9x9 m to 8x8 m), the height of the defenders (M=1.88; M=1.91), blockers (M=1.93; M=1.98), and players without any specialization (M=1.94; M=1.93) has increased significantly. Therefore, our results support those found by Tili and Giatsis (2011). The present study found an increase of the height of the Brazilian mean players after the rule changes; the height of the defenders increased an average of 0.02m and the height of the blockers increased an average of 0.05m.
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