Comparison of Measurements of External Load between Professional Soccer Players

Background: The excessive and rapid increases in training load (TL) may be responsible for most non-contact injuries in soccer. This study’s aims were to describe, week(w)-by-week, the acute (AW), chronic (CW), acute:chronic workload ratio (wACWR), total distance (wTD), duration training (wDT), spri...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Roghayyeh Gholizadeh, Hadi Nobari, Lotfali Bolboli, Marefat Siahkouhian, João Paulo Brito
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-06-01
Series:Healthcare
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/10/6/1116
Description
Summary:Background: The excessive and rapid increases in training load (TL) may be responsible for most non-contact injuries in soccer. This study’s aims were to describe, week(w)-by-week, the acute (AW), chronic (CW), acute:chronic workload ratio (wACWR), total distance (wTD), duration training (wDT), sprint total distance (wSTD), repeat sprint (wRS), and maximum speed (wMS) between starter and non-starter professional soccer players based on different periods (i.e., pre-, early-, mid-, and end-season) of a full-season (Persian Gulf Pro League, 2019–2020). Methods: Nineteen players were divided according to their starting status: starters (<i>n</i> = 10) or non-starters (<i>n</i> = 9). External workload was monitored for 43 weeks: pre- from w1–w4; early- from w5–w17; mid- from w18–w30, and end-season from w31–w43. Results: In starters, AW, CW, and wACWR were greater than non-starters (<i>p</i> < 0.05) throughout the periods of early- (CW, <i>p</i> ≤ 0.0001), mid- (AW, <i>p</i> = 0.008; CW, <i>p</i> ≤ 0.0001; wACWR, <i>p</i> = 0.043), or end-season (AW, <i>p</i> = 0.035; CW, <i>p</i> = 0.017; wACWR, <i>p</i> = 0.010). Starters had a greater wTD (<i>p</i> ≤ 0.0001), wSTD (<i>p</i> ≤ 0.0001 to 0.003), wDT (<i>p</i> ≤ 0.0001 to 0.023), wRS (<i>p</i> ≤ 0.0001 to 0.018), and wMS (<i>p</i> ≤ 0.0001) than non-starters during early-, mid-, and end-season. Conclusion: Starters experienced more CW and AW during the season than non-starters, which underlines the need to design tailored training programs accounting for the differences between playing status.
ISSN:2227-9032