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How to improve body composition
As seen previously, improving body composition can confer a competitive advantage to some athletes. Hence the interest of athletes and coaches on how to improve body composition. In general, improving body composition means decreasing fat mass and increasing fat-free mass or muscle mass (a.k.a. lean body mass). Besides training protocols and periodisation, there are nutrition approaches that can achieve a favourable change. How to improve body composition Body composition can be improved using a variety of nutrition approaches. Broadly speaking, they can be categorised as dietary manipulation (e.g. tweaking energy intake or macronutrient levels) and supplementation. Note that not all research in this area is done on athletes. Some studies…
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Body composition in sport
Body composition in sport receives much attention from athletes and everyone in their teams, from coaches to dietitians. This is because certain levels of body mass and fat levels are regarded as important for performance and/or aesthetics. What is body composition? Generally speaking, body composition refers to the relative amount of different tissues in the body. Most of the time, the main focus is body fat content. However, it is well known that other tissues such as bone and muscle are also important for athletic performance. For example, muscle is essential for generating power (1). Body composition in sport Body composition is important in those sports known as weight sensitive.…
