Measuring elite athletes’ body composition: A case study evaluating analysis techniques

by Adam Hawkey, Jarryd Dunn, Michelle Di Benardo, Kerry Matthews and Alan Parsons
Wednesday 18th March 2015 - Article 3

The effective monitoring of athletes’ health and performance is becoming increasingly important. One example of this is in the use of body composition measures to monitor levels of body fat, muscle mass and bone mass. These factors can all be useful when assessing training loads, rehabilitation and recovery, and the general health and wellbeing of the athlete. While the ‘gold standard’ of body composition measurement involves the use of dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), other techniques such as skinfold anthropometry (SFA) and bioelectrical impedance anthropometry are widely used; due to their relative low cost and ease of operation. The purpose of this current small-scale case study was to assess the comparability of a range of techniques frequently used to assess body composition in an elite athletic population.


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