Biology of Sport

Abstract

1/2022 vol. 39
Original paper

Accumulative weekly load in a professional football team: with special reference to match playing time and game position

  1. Atlantic European University. Santander, Spain
  2. Real Sociedad Sports Performance Department, San Sebastian, Spain
  3. FC Barcelona Sports Performance Department. Barcelona, Spain
  4. Murcia University, Faculty of Sports Sciences, San Javier, Spain
  5. Polish Football Federation
  6. Research Institute for Sport & Exercise Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
  7. University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain
Biol Sport.2022:39(1):115-124.
Online publish date: 2021/03/04
View full text
Confronting perimenopausal women’s knowledge of coronary heart disease with their health behaviours. Controversial role of hormone replacement therapy in the protection of coronary heart disease
The aim of this study was to compare weekly accumulative load during the in-season competitive period by professional soccer players according to the amount of time played in official matches (90-min, >60-min, <60-min, and 0-min) regarding the players’ position. Twenty-four professional outfield football players were monitored by GPS devices during training sessions and official matches and the accumulative weekly load were calculated for the following external load variables: total distance (TD; m), high speed running (HSR; >19.8 km·h-1), sprint meters (SPR; >25.2 km·h-1), high metabolic load distance (HMLD; >25.5 W·kg-1), number of accelerations (ACC; >3 m·s-2) and decelerations (DEC; <-3 m·s-2). This study revealed that players (as a whole o per demarcation) with more match playing time had a higher accumulative weekly load for most of the variables, but particularly at TD and HMLD (90-min and >60-min vs. <60-min and 0-min), HSR (90-min vs. <60-min and 0-min) and SPR (90-min vs. <60-min and 0-min). In addition, less positional variation was observed in relation to the competition requirements. This information would allow coaches to refine the required load with the objective of optimizing performance to soccer players.
Share
without publication fees