PRELIMINARY DESCRIPTIVE PARAMETERS FOR BODY COMPOSITION AND PHASE ANGLE IN TRACK-AND-FIELD ATHLETES FROM THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

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The assessment of body composition and the determination of phase angle (PA) have been widely acknowledged as physiologically meaningful tools for analysing athletic performance and health condition. However, event-specific descriptive data for track-and-field athletes in the Brazilian Amazon remain scarce. Objective: To describe and compare preliminary descriptive parameters of body composition and phase angle in sprint and endurance track-and-field athletes from the state of Amapá, Brazil, stratified by age group and event category. Methods: This cross-sectional observational study enrolled 46 athletes (≥14 years) affiliated with the Amapá Athletics Federation. Anthropometric measurements (body mass, stature), body composition measured through skinfold thickness at eight anatomical sites (subscapular, triceps, biceps, mid-axillary, supra-iliac, abdominal, thigh and calf) and octapolar multifrequency bioelectrical impedance with age-specific predictive equations for fat-free mass automatically applied by the device software according to the participant’s chronological age — Gonzalez et al. (2019) for adults (≥19 years) and Costa et al. (2022) for adolescents (14–18 years), both validated for the Brazilian population, and PA were obtained using standardised protocols. Participants were stratified into two age groups (14–18 years; ≥19 years) and two event categories (sprint; endurance). Statistical analysis comprised descriptive measures (Q1, Q2, Q3, mean ± SD), Shapiro-Wilk normality testing and independent-samples Student’s t-tests (α = 0.05). Results: Adult sprint athletes showed higher lean mass percentage (LM%) and lower body fat percentage (BF%) than endurance counterparts (p = 0.013). Body mass index (BMI) was higher in adults than adolescents in both event categories (p ≤ 0.006). Adult sprint athletes presented higher total PA, upper-limb PA (ULPA), and lower-limb PA (LLPA) than endurance athletes (p ≤ 0.003). Conclusions: These preliminary descriptive parameters may inform talent identification, individualised training prescription and longitudinal health monitoring of regional track-and-field athletes, although their use as normative references requires larger and sex-stratified samples. The higher PA values observed in adult sprint athletes are consistent with this parameter being associated with cellular integrity, lean mass status, and neuromuscular readiness in this exploratory sample.

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