Abstract
Acrobatics and tumbling (A&T) has gained significant attention since becoming an official National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sport about a decade ago. The sport requires elite-level athletic abilities to perform tosses, lifts, and tumbling, making maintaining optimal body composition a key priority. However, little is known about the longitudinal impacts of the sport’s elite training and competition on specific aspects of body composition of its athletes. PURPOSE: To analyze changes in total and segmental bone mineral density over the course of entire collegiate career in Division I female A&T athletes. METHODS: Division I female A&T athletes underwent total body composition dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans on a quarterly basis from 2010-2022 (Lunar iDXA, General Electric Medical Systems, Madison, WI). Athletes were instructed to wear comfortable athletics attire, remove all metal, and refrain from exercising and eating for 1 hour prior to scans. Standard screening and safety protocols were performed before and during the scan. Total bone mineral density (BMD), and BMD of the legs, pelvis, and spine were analyzed using the 14.10 version of the encore software (General Electric Healthcare Lunar, Madison, WI). A total of 140 athletes received at least >2 DXA scans (ALL analysis), with 35 athletes having >3 years (3Y analysis) of consecutive DXA data available. Linear mixed-models were used to determine changes in body composition measurements using R software (v. 4.4) with the nlme (v. 3.1-164), emmeans (v. 1.10.1) and sjPlot (v. 2.8.15) packages. RESULTS: In the ALL analysis, total BMD and spine BMD increased over time, without time effects for other outcomes (p<0.05 for each). In the 3Y analysis, spine BMD significantly increased over time (p<0.05). Bottom position athletes experienced increases in total BMD over time in the ALL analysis, while tumblers saw increases in spine BMD. CONCLUSION: Female Division I A&T athletes experienced significant increases in spine BMD in both analyses, while those in the ALL analysis also saw significant increases in total BMD. These observations provide novel insight into the impacts of elite-level A&T involvement on BMD over the course of multiple years.
Recommended Citation
Pickler, Mary C.; Gallucci, Andrew R.; Lee, Katherine M.; Bolden, Leroy K.; and Tinsley, Grant M.
(2026)
"Bone Mineral Density Changes in NCAA Division I Female Acrobatics & Tumbling Athletes Across Collegiate Career,"
International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings: Vol. 2:
Iss.
18, Article 170.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ijesab/vol2/iss18/170