British Journal of Sports Medicine 2007;41:644-648
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Influence of anthropometry on race performance in extreme endurance triathletes: World Challenge Deca Iron Triathlon 2006
1 Gesundheitszentrum St Gallen, Switzerland
2 Multisport Andonie, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico
3 Division of Biophysical Chemistry, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Correspondence to:
Dr Knechtle, Gesundheitszentrum St Gallen, Switzerland; beat.knechtle{at}hispeed.ch
Objective: To investigate the influence of anthropometric variables on race performance in ultra-endurance triathletes in an ultra-triathlon.
Design: Descriptive field study.
Setting: The "World Challenge Deca Iron Triathlon 2006" in Monterrey, Mexico, in which everyday for 10 consecutive days athletes had to perform the distance of one Ironman triathlon of 3.8 km swimming, 180 km cycling and 42.195 km running.
Subjects: Eight male ultra-endurance athletes (mean (SD) age 40.6 (10.7) years, weight 76.4 (8.4) kg, height 175 (4) cm and body mass index (BMI) 24.7 (2.2) kg/m2).
Interventions: None.
Main outcome measures: Direct measurement of body mass, height, leg length, skinfold thicknesses, limb circumference and calculation of BMI, skeletal muscle mass (SM), percentage SM (%SM) and percentage body fat (%BF) in order to correlate measured and calculated anthropometric variables with race performance.
Results: Race time was not significantly (p>0.05) influenced by the directly measured variables, height, leg length, body mass, average skinfold thicknesses, or circumference of thigh, calf or upper arm. Furthermore, no significant (p>0.05) correlation was observed between race time and the calculated variables, BMI, %SM and %BF.
Conclusions: In a multistage ultra-triathlon over 10 Ironman triathlon distances in 10 consecutive days, there was no effect of body mass, height, leg length, skinfold thicknesses, limb circumference, BMI, %SM or %BF on race performance in the only eight finishers.
Abbreviations: %BF, percentage body fat; BMI, body mass index; SM, skeletal muscle mass
Keywords: body mass index; skeletal muscle mass; fat mass; extreme endurance; ultra triathlon
Relevant Article
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Br. J. Sports Med. 2007 41: 648.
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
-
All Versions of this Article:
bjsm.2006.035014v1
41/10/644 most recent - Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
