Purpose To maximise sporting success, disciplines such as basketball and volleyball need to improve their methods of
analysing the sporting performance and fitness of their athletes. Although energy intake quantities have been established at
a theoretical level for women to perform at a sporting level, it has been found that these energy intake levels are not met or
followed and that, despite this, the performance of female players is not diminished. Thus, the purpose of this research study
was to describe and compare the anthropometric characteristics of these two disciplines and to identify the differences in
actual and theoretical energy intake, as well as to observe physical performance in both disciplines.
Methods Anthropometric data, continuous quantitative data, training time and characteristics, and energy intake data were
collected. Performance tests included upper and lower body strength, speed, agility, and endurance tests. Dietary monitoring
showed lower intakes of total energy, carbohydrate and protein than theoretically recommended. However, the athletes
experienced overall improvements in performance and body composition.
Results The mean total energy intake was 20.2 ± 4.3 kcal·kg−1·day−1. The minimum individual mean intake was
9.8 kcal·kg−1·day−1 and the maximum was 25.95 kcal·kg−1·day−1. Carbohydrates accounted for 54.3% ± 8.8% of the energy
intake; 20.3% ± 6.5% from fats; 25.4% ± 5.7% from proteins.
Conclusions Current data suggest that, although a cause-effect relationship between dietary intake and BC performance
cannot be determined, elite athletes in these sports disciplines may experience beneficial outcomes despite having lower
total energy, CHO, protein, and fat intakes than previously recommended in the literature.
