This year the NFL combine will take place the week of February 24, 2025. This is one of my favorite times of the year regarding football. The attention from both college and professional football fans focuses on the NFL combine. College football players undergo a series of tests to determine, speed, strength, and agility.  
 
Although the Dexalytics website contains several blogs on a variety of issues pertaining to DXA, as well as specific topics regarding athletes and a number of sports, there are over 25 blogs pertaining directly to football. If you are interested in body composition and football, be it college or professional, I suggest you check out these blogs. Since 25 blogs may be a lot for you to read, I have compiled a list of my 5 favorite blogs specific to football on Dexalytics. These blogs provide a great starting point to learn a little about body composition and football. 

1.    Comparing The Muscle-to-Bone Ratio in College and NFL Football Players 

The muscle-to-bone ratio (MBR) has become a topic of interest in the world of both collegiate and professional football. Several football teams are starting to use MBR to make decisions regarding the optimal weight an athlete should weigh. This blog explored total as well as regional measures of MBR determined using dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) in NCAA Division I College Football players (n=553) and compared these measures to a group of National Football League (NFL) players (n=346). The authors noted significant differences in total as well as regional MBRs between NCAA Division I College Football players and National Football League players. This is a great blog to compare the two unique groups of football players.

2.    Muscle-To-Bone Ratio in College and NFL Offensive Football Players

This blog followed up the previous blog by comparing the muscle-to-bone (MBR) ratio in NCAA Division I College Offensive Players to NFL Offensive Players. The blog examined these total as well as regional MBRs in offensive players by positions (i.e., quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and offensive linemen). It is an interesting look at the similarities in these offensive position groups in college and NFL offensive players. A future blog will examine the defensive positions (i.e., defensive linemen, defensive backs, linebackers, and punters/kickers) in college and NFL offensive players. 

3.    Normative Data In College and NFL Football Athletes Using DXA (Offense)

The blog was based on two scientific papers examining body composition in 467 NCAA Division 1 collegiate football players and 342 NFL football players. This blog compares body composition between collegiate and professional offensive players. It is the only place that really compares collegiate and NFL players by offensive positions.

4.    Normative Data in College and NFL Football Athletes Using DXA (Defense)

This is a companion to the previous blog, but instead of looking at offensive players, this blog focuses on defensive players. This is a great blog if you are interested in the defensive aspect of collegiate and professional football athletes and the only place where you can compare these two groups of football players directly.

5.    Changes in Body Composition Over A Collegiate Football Career

This blog examined data from over 700 NCAA Division 1 collegiate football players, who were scanned over the course of their collegiate football careers. A total of over 2,500 scans were used in this analysis. This blog reported that over the span of 4 years the percent body fat increased in players from years 18-19 years of age, but after that remained relatively constant.  Lean muscle mass on the other hand tended to increase each year.

As I indicated above, these blogs provide a great introduction to body composition and football. If you want to delve further into the science these blogs are based upon, the scientific papers are referenced below. They will provide you with the science that went into these blogs as well as Dexalytics.

References

Dengel DR, Evanoff NG: Positional differences in muscle-to-bone ratio in National Football League players. International Journal of Sports Medicine 44:720-727, 2023.

Wichmann TK, Wolfson J, Roelofs EJ, Bosch TA, Bach CW, Oliver JM, Carbuhn A, Stanforth PR, Dengel DR: Longitudinal assessment of NCAA division I football body composition by season and player age. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 36(6):1682-1690, 2022.

Bosch TA, Carbuhn A, Stanforth PR, Oliver JM, Keller KA, Dengel DR: Body composition and bone mineral density of division 1 collegiate football players: a consortium of college athlete research study. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 33(5):1339-1346, 2019. 

Bosch TA, Burruss TP, Weir NL, Fielding KA, Engel BE, Weston TD, Dengel DR: Abdominal body composition difference in NFL football players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 28(12):3313-3319, 2014.

Dengel DR, Bosch TA, Burruss TP, Fielding KA, Engel BE, Weir NL, Weston TD: Body composition of National Football League players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 28(1):1-6, 2014.

About the Author
Donald Dengel, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Minnesota and is a co-founder of Dexalytics. He serves as the Director of the Laboratory of Integrative Human Physiology, which provides clinical vascular, metabolic, exercise and body composition testing for researchers across the University of Minnesota.