Application of Bioelectrical Vector Analysis in Professional Soccer

Soccer is a sport team with a discontinuous nature of physical effort and the duration of the regular season is 10 months length. Hydration status, water consumption are aspects of human performance debate in recent years and it's well demonstrated as a reduction of total body water impairs endurance ability. Bio impedance is a useful methods to assess total body water, in addition recent studies reports a new approach in the evaluation of hydration status independently from body weight. The aim of the study was to determine changes of the bioelectrical impedance throughout a soccer season. Bioelectrical parameters of a Italian professional football team were recorded eight time during a regular season. The detection were carried out following the standard tetra polar method. Twenty-five male soccer players were submitted at BIA measurement, but only eleven athletes took part in all eight sessions detection. The data recorded by conventional BIA processing didn't show any statistical differences in weight, hydration and cellular masses. Bio Impedance Vector Analysis (BIVA) shows a high significance in Anova test for the values of Xc (p<0.01) and PA (p<0.001), no difference in Rz among eight measurements. Body composition and hydration status in footballers are generally well and the variations in conventional BIA are minimal. Therefore BIVA in this population may give specific information for physiological changes for training dues. A regular bio impedance assessment in athletes is desirable to follow adaptations to training loads.