Differences in body components and electrical characteristics between youth soccer players and non-athletes

Abstract

Many previous studies have focused on youth soccer playerinjuries without body component analysis compared to non-athletes. Only a fewstudies which have investigated body components of youth soccer players, andstudies that look at electrical characteristics used by rheobase andchronaxie as well as body components are even scarcer. Therefore, we feel thatthere is a need for a study investigating objective clinical analysis of the body components (body structureand body composition) and electrical characteristics of both youth soccerplayers and non-athletes. Sixty subjects participated in our study, comprisingof thirty youth soccer players and thirty non-athletes. The Inbody 520 was usedto measure and analyze body composition and the Duo 500 was employed to measureelectrical characteristics. It was observed that the soccer players showedmarkedly lower total impedance compared to the non-athletes. In both legs, itwas particularly noted that there were significant differences between theright and left sides. The soccer players showed a higher skeletal muscle massand lean/ideal lean × 100%compared to the non-athletes. Furthermore, the soccer players had a lower rheobaseand higher chronaxie. A comparison of the genders showed a similar pattern. Inthis study, we were able to separate the differences in body components andelectrical characteristics between the subject groups using a systemic approach.Future studies on diverse types of athletes would contribute further to the development of clinicalphysiotherapy and sports rehabilitation.