Malia Nikole Melvin: Muscle Characteristics and body composition of NCAA Division I football players. (Under the direction of Abbie E. Smith-Ryan) The purpose of this study was to investigate muscle cross sectional area (mCSA) and echo intensity (EI) of the vastus lateralis (VL) and body composition of Division I football players. Sixty-nine players were stratified by position, race, year, and starter status. Muscle CSA and EI were determined from a B-mode ultrasound panoramic scan of the VL

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... ng Image-J software. Fat mass (FM), lean mass (LM), and body fat (%fat) were determined using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Measures of mCSA (38.7±6.6 cm 2 , %fat (17.9±4.6 %), LM (81.3±11.8 kg), and FM (19.5±8.7 kg) were found to be significantly different across position (p<0.05), likely due to the differences in positionspecific tasks. Offensive and defensive linemen were not significantly different (p>0.05), and had the greatest mCSA (44.4 cm 2 ), %fat (23.4%), LM (96.4 kg) and FM (30.9 kg) values in comparison to all other positions. No differences (p=0.161) were observed between positions for EI. iv AKNOWLEDGEMENTS