Body Composition

• Body composition is a combination of muscle, fat, bone and water, which all comes together to form an individuals mass

• An individual’s mass takes into consideration, height and weight

• An increase in lean muscle weight contributes to strength and power development

• A sufficient level of lean muscle weight contributes to speed, quickness and agility performance

So does this mean particular athletes perform better in particular sports due to their body composition?

Source

Telford, R.D. and Cunningham, R.B. 1991. Sex, sport and body-size dependency of hematology in highly trained athletes. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 23: 788-794.

“—”

Lets think about the data….

• This data was used in 1991….. so has the body composition of individuals changed/evolved? with new technology and innovation each sport could have even further maximised their body composition for better performance (for example using drug or supplement enhancement)

• While all these individuals are elite, which were the highest performing athletes at that time… we can question if they had to fit the “best” body composition required for their sport?

• What other factors other than body composition could affect their performance? Mental, spiritual, psycological, fittness, nutrition?…

• In the team sports is it best to have all athletes of a similar body composition, or a variety?

• How does age effect the results? Consider confounding factors such as adolescent, young adult and adult ages

• How do we know which body composition was the most superior for each sport as the data didnt include any results?

Statistical Thinking

-Does height and weight differ in sports?

-Does height and weight influence athletic performance?

-Does gender influence the height and weight of an individual?

Scatterplot Trends

• Females in field event sports such as shot put and discuss are seen to be shorter and lighter than males…. Why?

• Male basketball athletes and rowers tend to be significantly taller and heavier than female athletes…. This may be due to …..

• Sprinters for both males and females have a similar proportion distribution regarding their heights and weights…. Why?

“But does this contradict the distribution of male and female athletes in these sports”

Barplot Trends

• From the graph if we specifically look at basketball, the data shows more females athletes….. Why?

• We can also see that there are more female athletes distributed to the sport of rowing….. This may be as a result of ………..

• In addition the graph presents more male athletes in the sprinting sport category….. Why?

• Finally we can see from the graph that there are more male athletes than female athletes in the field event category….. This may be due to …….

“This data is too general, more background knowledge and statistical data analysis is needed”

What does this mean?

-The sprinters in this data set were not as tall on average as expected

-This could be due to a limited sample size, or the age of the data (from 1991)

-Heights vaired greatly, but weights were more specific

-On average the lightest and the smallest of the four sports

-Genetic aspects that were not analysed in this data, (muscle fibres) likely have a greater impact on sprinting ability than body composition

What does this mean?

-As we can see, basketball players in both genders are taller than 170 cm. > Therefore, being a relatively tall individual is beneficial to any position in basketball

-This compared to other sports, in females, basketball players have the same height but lightly lower in weight which may help them jump higher. > Whereas, in males, Basketball players are highest scale at body composition

What does this mean?

-Male rowers are both taller and heavier on average than the females

-These outliers could be chance errors or possibly the coxswain of the team

-Females have a much bigger spread of weight however a similar spread of height to males

-Overall this anaerobic sport is most suited for a larger weight that is muscle rather than fat and height, esspecially long legs and arms.

Shot Put

“Field events are athletic sports other than races, such as throwing and jumping events”"

• Athletes push a heavy metal ball as far as possible using their predominant hand. The athletes shot the goes the farthest from the front marker of the throwing circle is deemed the winner of that event

• There are two ways to push the shot put… some atheletes stand, legs apart at the front of the circle and simply throw the shot put without any momentum, simply using arm and leg muscular strength. Other athletes however use a run up to increase their entire momentum and force put on the ball to accomodate for muslce or strength they may not possess. The athlete uses his or her legs to generate upward momentum before releasing the shot from shoulder height

• Senior men use a 16 pound shot and senior women use an 8.82 pound shot.

“—”

Discus

“Athletes throw a heavy circular disc as far as possible”

• The modern discus used in men’s competition is circular, about 219 mm (8.6 inches) in diameter and 44 mm (1.75 inches) thick at its centre

• Women discus athletes use a slightly smaller discus weighing 1 kg (2 pounds 3.2 ounces) and 180 mm (7.1 inches) is used in women’s events

• The technique applied to discus is very similar to shot put, meaning that the event relies heavily on muscular strength and momentum to achieve the best possible results

Field Throwing Events

“—”

• “Although muscle mass and strength are thought to be closely related to throwing performance, there are few scientific data about these parameters in elite shot-putters”

Conclusion: “Elite rotational shot-put performance may not be directly correlated with lean body mass. Instead, it seems that it is closely related with measures of muscle strength”

Field Events in Athletics

“—”

“—”

What does this mean?

-Male athletes are significantly taller and heavier than female athletes in regards to the field event sports of shot put and discuss. > This can be concluded as male athletes have a higher mean and standard deviation than female athletes, thus the data is positively skewed

-The male athlete data especially for both height and weight shows major outliers, which represent individual athletes with extreme height and weight body compositions

-Female athletes on the other hand, have a lower mean, and thus are more negatively skewed

-The conclusions of this data can therefore be expected, as referenced in the domain knowledge, males are scientifically proven to have more muscle mass than women. > Therefore man are able to develop more lean muscle (weight) on there body’s as they are more commonly taller and stronger than women. > Thus male athletes are more likely to peform better in shot put and discuss field events sport as they are areas dominated by muscular strength

“—”