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Assessing body composition of athletes

chapter
posted on 2019-04-26, 08:57 authored by Gary Slater, Vicky Goosey-TolfreyVicky Goosey-Tolfrey
The assessment of body composition has become routine amongst Paralympic athletes, with application in general health screens, talent identification initiatives and routine monitoring of adaptation to training and/or diet. The rationale for assessment and outcome measures of interest plays a key role in ascertaining which body composition assessment technique to use. However, consideration must also be given to the individual athlete and their specific impairment. This may have implications in either the practical administration of the technique and/or the unique physical characteristics of Paralympic athletes which may violate underlying assumptions associated with specific body composition assessment techniques. This chapter discusses the most commonly used techniques to assess body composition of Paralympic athletes, including anthropometrics, dual energy x-ray absorptiometry, air displacement plethysmography and bioelectrical impedance analysis. While guidance for body composition assessment amongst athletes with intellectual and visual impairments differs little from that for able-bodied athletes, individuals with spinal cord injuries present unique challenges. Normative body composition data on Paralympic athletes is lacking, ensuring the longitudinal monitoring of changes remains a priority at the individual athlete level.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

Sports Nutrition for Paralympic Athletes, Second Edition

Pages

245 - 264 (19)

Citation

SLATER, G. and GOOSEY-TOLFREY, V.L., 2019. Assessing body composition of athletes. IN: Broad, E. (ed.). Sports Nutrition for Paralympic Athletes, Second Edition. Boca Raton: CRC Press, pp.245-264.

Publisher

CRC Press

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2019

Notes

This book chapter is closed access.

ISBN

9780429491955

Language

  • en

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