Table 1. Descriptive characteristics of included studies with rhythmic gymnasts.

Study	Participants				Training		Data source	Measured areas	Outcome	QA
	Number	Sex	Age (yrs)	Tanner stage	History (yrs)	Volume (hours/week)
Parm et al. (2011b)	RG (46) UC (43)	F F	8.0±0.6 8.2±0.6	I I	1-3	6-12	DXA	Whole body, lumbar spine, femoral neck.	RG had higher WB aBMD, LS aBMD and FN aBMD compared to UC	4/7
Jürimäe et al. (2016*)	RG (32) UC (32)	F F	10.0±0.6 10.1±0.5	32/0/0/0/0 12/14/6/0/0	≥4	10-12	DXA	Whole body, lumbar spine, femoral neck.	RG had higher WB aBMD, LS aBMD and FN aBMD compared to UC	4/7
Vicente-Rodriguez et al. (2007)	RG (13) UC (13)	F F	10.4±0.7 9.9±0.7	3/10/0/0/0 2/11/0/0/0	3.3±1.2	15	DXA	Whole body, lumbar spine, femoral neck, forearm.	RG had higher FN aBMD and FN BMC compared to UC	4/7
Võsoberg et al. ((2016)	RG (35) UC (33)	F F	10.9±0.6 11.2±0.5	8/23/4/0/0 4/15/10/4/0	≥5	6-14	DXA	Whole body, lumbar spine, femoral neck.	RG had higher WB aBMD, LS aBMD, FN aBMD and WB BMC compared to UC	4/7
Tournis et al. (2010*)	RG (26) UC (23)	F F	11.3±0.2 10.9±0.1	10/13/3/0/0 7/12/4/0/0	4.3±0.3	≥24	pQCT	Distal tibia.	RG had higher cortical and trabecular BMC, and trabecular vBMD compared to UC	4/7
Maimoun et al. (2013a*)	RG (20) UC (20)	F F	13.8±2.2 13.7±2.0	3/7/3/0/7 2/3/3/1/11	≥5	21.4±4.4	DXA	Whole body, lumbar spine, femoral region, radius.	RG had higher FN aBMD compared to UC	4/7
Courteix et al. (2007*)	RG (36) UC (20)	F F	13.4±1.8 12.5±1.7	I-V	N/A	18.1±3.3	DXA	Whole body, lumbar spine	RG had higher WB aBMD and LS aBMD compared to UC	5/7
Maimoun et al. (2013b*)	RG (24) UC (24)	F F	13.9±1.7 14.4±1.8	4/4/6/4/6 1/1/2/2/18	6.8±1.3	23.0±2.7	DXA	Whole body, lumbar spine, femoral neck, forearm	RG had higher WB aBMD and FN aBMD compared to UC	5/7
Gruodyte et al. (2010a)	RG (23) UC (33)	F F	14.3±1.0 14.2±1.1	0/1/7/11/4 0/1/5/23/4	6.5±1.8	9.6±4.9	DXA	Lumbar spine, femoral neck	RG had higher LS aBMD and FN aBMD compared to UC	4/7
Munoz et al. (2004*)	RG (9) UC (14)	F F	16.2±2.0 16.9±1.0	V V	≥5	≥20	DXA	Lumbar spine, femoral neck, forearm	RG had higher FN aBMD and lower FA aBMD compared to UC	4/7

Tanner stage: when presented by Roman numbers, it represents what Tanner stages participants were, without specifying the number of participants in each Tanner stage; when presented by Arabic numbers, it represents the number of participants in each Tanner stage acoordingly: I/II/III/IV/V.* These studies have also measured bone turnover values. aBMD areal bone mineral density, BA bone area, BMC bone mineral content, DXA dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, F female, FN femoral neck, FA forearm, LS lumbar spine, M male, N/A not available, pQCT peripheral quantitative computed tomography, QA quality assessment, RG rhythmic gymnasts, UC untrained controls, vBMD volumetric bone mineral density, WB whole body.