Abstract

The study of nutritional requirements of team sports athletes is growing considerably in recent years, allowing determining their nutritional needs both, in training and competition. However, scientific research does not seem to progress in the same way with Paralympics team sports, such as wheelchair basketball. Scientific literature does not allow determining the most effective nutritional practices to improve performance and recovery of these athletes nor to reduce the incidence of injuries other than the chronic disability of the subjects.

Among the different Paralympic sports, the wheelchair basketball has one of the highest energy expenditure during its practice but if it is compared to conventional basketball, the energy cost is lower and, therefore, also its caloric requirement. Thus, it might not be recommendable to use the equations to obtain the energy expenditure in traditional basketball players with this population. In addition, it could be most important to take into account the type of injury of athletes, because his great influence in the body composition and energy expenditure since it can modifies the strength, speed, agility, play position, thermoregulation and even the functionality of the sympathetic system, among other factors (e.g., paraplegia is related to a reduced functionality of nervous system and slower gastric emptying, which delays the absorption of nutrients together with a restricted synthesis of adrenaline and noradrenaline and less lipolysis of the adipose tissue)