Several studies have shown that high impact weight-bearing sports are more beneficial than non-weight-bearing ones. Despite being considered a high impact sport, few studies relate it with bone mineral density (BMD) development. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare BMD between female volleyball players and 60 volunteer girls aged 13-17-y who participated in this study. They were classified in Volleyball Group (VG) - who were practicing volleyball - and Control Group (CG). Body mass, height, calcium uptake, total body, head, femoral neck and Wards Triangle BMD and sexual maturation were measured. Differences between groups were analyzed by t-test for independent samples (p < 0.05). The VG was statistically higher in total body (1.174 ± 0.065), femoral neck (1.164 ± 0.096) and Wards triangle (1.111 ± 0.138) BMD than CG (total body: 1.083 ± 0.082; femoral neck: 0.998 ± 0.142; Wards triangle: 0.944 ± 0.178); however, head BMD was not different between groups. Therefore, volleyball practice is an important sport to promote bone mass acquisition during adolescence and head BMD became a possible internal standard for selection of bias control.
bone mass; sport; adolescence
