The body composition of elite wheelchair basketball players

The assessment of body composition is a commonly used monitoring tool in elite sports, to assess changes as a result of either a training and/or dietary intervention. Theoretically, excess body fat, above levels required for health and sporting performance, constitutes additional load that is non-functional. In most sports, the movement of this additional weight will increase energy expenditures and muscle glycogen utilisation and could contribute to premature muscle fatigue. In addition, non-functional mass has also been shown to have an impact on performance factors such as speed, acceleration and drag/rolling resistance (e.g. in cycling or wheelchair sports). For these reasons, body composition is often an important performance measure that requires attention. Individuals who are wheelchair bound experience substantial muscle atrophy of the lower extremities and have a greater tendency to store fat mass. It is of importance from both a health and performance perspective to understand the body composition of athletes with a disability. There are numerous techniques available to estimate body composition; therefore it is also important to determine the most suitable for use in elite wheelchair athletes, and whether they are sensitive enough to detect small yet significant changes. The first study, Chapter 4 was designed to assess the reproducibility of dual energy X-ray absorptiometry within a cohort of elite wheelchair basketball players. In addition, this chapter sought to establish measurement error and determine the least significant change that would need to be observed, to be certain of a change in body composition. The findings demonstrated good reproducibility with coefficient of variation values for all whole body measurements being