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Physique Characteristics Associated with Athlete Performance

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Best Practice Protocols for Physique Assessment in Sport

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Abstract

Profiling of athletes at levels of participation in sport can help determine potential suitability for sport and effectiveness of interventions such as diet and training. As scientists and clinicians, we ask what physique characteristics are important for athletes in the sports we work with to help improve performance or reduce injury risk; what should we measure and monitor? Athletes, and their coaches, often ask how the athletes’ physique compares to elite athletes in their sport. Accessing normative data for athletes at levels of participation from development to elite can be difficult. Consideration of secular trends for physique characteristics in normative databases is needed. Where possible current research data should be gained to enable comparisons of physique characteristics for athletes of similar age, gender, ethnicity and sports participation level. This chapter aims to highlight important physique characteristics for selected sports that aim to optimise power and leverage or have a high metabolic demand, based on studies report in recent published literature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sport Performance Research Institute New Zealand, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Patria A. Hume

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  1. Patria A. Hume
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Correspondence to Patria A. Hume .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sport Performance Research Institute New Zealand, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Patria A. Hume

  2. School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, West Australia, Australia

    Deborah A. Kerr

  3. School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health, The University of Western Australia, Perth, West Australia, Australia

    Timothy R. Ackland

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Hume, P.A. (2018). Physique Characteristics Associated with Athlete Performance. In: Hume, P., Kerr, D., Ackland, T. (eds) Best Practice Protocols for Physique Assessment in Sport. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5418-1_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5418-1_17

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-5417-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-5418-1

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