When most people think of nutritionists, they think of “healthy eating” and weight loss. However, the importance of sports nutritionist to maximise the athlete performance is fundamentally linked to diet and body composition too.
See Min, a professional sports nutritionist who works at the National Sports Institute Malaysia, recently joined the Malaysian contingent to the Southeast Asian Games in Hanoi to support the national team, shared her experience with how she accurately tracks athletes’ body composition using Bbioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA).
How does the BIA application provide a better strategy to maximise athletes’ performance?
Bioelectrical impedance analysis, as See Min mentioned, is one of the convenient methods for monitoring body composition in the sports nutrition field. It is utilised to monitor segmental lean mass for sports in a mass group, such as team sports, especially when regular assessment is required at different training phases. This is highly useful when sports nutritionists want to monitor changes in athletes’ body composition as the sports seasons change and adjust the dietary plan to assist athletes in achieving body composition goals that allow for maximum performance during competition.
By referring to the result sheet printed out from the BIA devices, sports nutritionists are able to explain body composition changes to athletes and coaches with ease. This allows the athletes to understand how their dietary practice and training programme could affect their body composition and performance in competition.
Watch the video to learn more about how BIA can assist sports nutritionists in helping athletes to achieve optimum body compositions for optimum performance in each phase of their training.
