Sports medicine workers often want to determine the body composition (density and percentage of fat) of athletes. The typical way this is done is to weigh the individual in a tub of water to determine...

Sports medicine workers often want to determine the body composition (density and percentage of fat) of athletes. The typical way this is done is to weigh the individual in a tub of water to determine the amount of water displaced. For paraplegic athletes, weighing in water is technically difficult and stressful. Because body composition in normal athletes can be predicted using a variety of body measurements (e.g., neck size, biceps circumference, weight, height, chest size), Bulbulian and coworkers* wanted to see if a similar approach could be used to determine the body composition of paraplegic athletes. The equations used to predict body composition from a variety of measurements are different for different body types; for example, ectomorphs—skinny athletes such as long-distance runners—require a different equation than mesomorphs—beefy athletes such as fullbacks—of similar height. Therefore, as part of their evaluation, these investigators wanted to determine which body type was predominant in paraplegic athletes. They hypothesized that the increased upper body development of paraplegics would make them have the characteristics of mesomorphs (the data for biceps circumference are in Table D-19, Appendix D). Is there any evidence that the biceps muscle circumference is different in the two body types (ectomorph or mesomorph) and paraplegics? If so, use appropriate pairwise comparisons to pinpoint the differences.

Table D-19