Journal of Head Neck & Spine Surgery Abstract Professional sport activities or work may exert considerable stress on the spine. We aimed to assess the effects of loading on the deformation of the vertebral body of the twelfth thoracic vertebra (T12) and the lumbar vertebrae (L1-L5), which are subjected to considerable stress in basketball players. A total of 20 basketball players were assigned to one of two groups, based on their experience with playing basketball: under 5 years, junior gr