Mass distribution of wheelchair athletes assessed using DXA scans and biomechanical simulations

The anthropometries of elite wheelchair racing athletes differ to the generic, able-bodied anthropometries commonly used in computational biomechanical simulations. The impact of using able-bodied parameters on the accuracy of simulations involving wheelchair racing is currently unknown. In this study, athlete-specific mass segment inertial parameters of five elite wheelchair athletes were calculated using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scans. These were compared against commonly used anthropometrics parameters of data presented in the literature. A computational biomechanical simulation of wheelchair propulsion assessed the sensitivity of athlete-specific mass parameters using Kruskal-Wallis analysis, Mann-Whitney U analysis and Spearman correlations. Substantial between-athlete body mass distribution variances (thigh mass < 14.6% total body mass), and between-limb asymmetries (