Comparison of Techniques for Tracking Body Composition Changes across a Season in College Women Basketball Players

Body composition assessment has become an integral part of athletes’ training schedules. Questions remain concerning the accuracy of various methods to track body composition changes over a competitive year cycle. The purpose of this study was to compare various methods of tracking body composition across a college women’s basketball season. Fourteen Division II women (age = 20.1 ± 1.2 y) were measured prior to the season (T1), after pre-season conditioning (T2), at mid-season (T3), and at the end of the season (T4) using skinfolds (SKF), two bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA) devices, and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA). BIA devices were hand-to-hand (H-BIA) and foot-to-foot (F-BIA) single-frequency models. SKF were used to estimate %fat using four prediction equations. A method × trial factorial ANOVA on %fat with repeated measures over the second factor indicated that all methods except the Durnin-Womersley SKF equation were significantly lower than DXA. Across trials, DXA %fat at T1 (25.3 ± 4.7%) was significantly higher than at T2 (24.3 ± 4.6%), T3 (24.6 ± 4.6%), and T4 (24.4 ± 5.1%). Agreement between DXA and the other methods were moderate (r = 0.48 – 0.86). Rank-order correlations of DXA with the other methods to compare team order indicated H-BIA (rho = 0.67 – 0.78) and F-BIA (rho = 0.62 – 0.77) provided comparable agreement, with SKF methods having lower agreement for team order (rho = 0.46 – 0.73). Compared to the DXA standard, a foot-to-foot BIA device may provide adequate but significantly lower relative tracking of %fat across a women’s basketball season.