Physical fitness of elite women's rugby union players over a ...

in forwards is reflected as additional body fat which may serve as a protective buffer in
contact and collision situations (Duthie, 2006).
Body fat values for the backs are similar to other team sports such as field hockey, soccer and
touch rugby (Duthie, Pyne & Hooper, 2003). When comparing the skinfold thickness to other
female team sport players, the SA elite female rugby backs (106.66 ± 19.12 mm), have a
greater sum of 7 skinfold thickness in comparison with soccer (95.9 ± 23.0 mm) (Tumility,
2000), hockey (68.2 ± 13.6 mm) (Lawrence & Polgaze, 2000) and touch rugby players (71.3 ±
11.85 mm) (O’Connor, 1997), but lower sum of skinfold values when compared with
international female rugby league backs (114.8 ± 20.2 mm) (Gabbett, 2007). Reilly and Doran
(2001), indicated that where extra mass consists of fat rather than lean tissue, the power-toweight
ratio is reduced, energy expenditure during movement is increased, horizontal and
vertical acceleration are diminished which suggests that the South African backs could benefit
from a loss of subscanteous fat, thereby improving their power and speed which can have a
positively influence on outcomes during closely contested matches.
In rugby, desirable changes in body composition (increases in lean mass and/or decrease in
skinfolds) occur primarily during preparation of competition when training volume is high
(Duthie et al., 2006a; Holmyard & Hazeldine, 1993; Gabbett, 2005a, 2005b; Tong & Mayes,
1995). Furthermore, skinfold thickness and or lean mass was maintained throughout the
competitive phase of the season when training loads were reduced, match loads and injuries
were at their highest (Gabbett, 2005a; Duthie et al., 2006a). Despite a significant decrease
(p