Relationship between training load and match running performance in men’s soccer

¹ Escola Superior Desporto e Lazer, Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Rua Escola Industrial e Comercial de Nun’Álvares, 4900-347 Viana do Castelo, Portugal

² The research Centre in Sports Sciences, Health Sciences and Human Development (CIDESD), 5001-801 Vila Real, Portugal

³ Department of Physical Education and Special Motricity, University Transilvania of Brasov, 500068 Brasov, Romania

⁴ Department of Physical Education and Sports, University of Granada, 18009 Granada, Spain

⁵ Department of Exercise Physiology, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Isfahan, 81746-7344 Isfahan, Iran

⁶ HEME Research Group, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Extremadura, 10003 Cáceres, Spain

⁷ Associação de Futebol de Bragança, 5300-861 Bragança, Portugal

⁸ Instituto de Telecomunicações, Delegação da Covilhã, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal

^*Correspondence: georgian.badicu@unitbv.ro (Georgian Badicu)

J. Mens. Health 2021, 17(4), 92–98; https://doi.org/10.31083/jomh.2021.082

Submitted: 25 April 2021 | Accepted: 11 June 2021 | Published: 30 September 2021

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exercise and sports in men: from health to sports performance)

This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Abstract

Objectives: The main aim of this study was to test the relationship of volume and weekly training intensities with match-running demands of professional male soccer players.

Methods: The training volume and intensity load and match demands of 18 professional soccer players (age: 20.7 $\pm$ 1.8 years) were monitored daily for 15 weeks.

Results: Match high-speed running (mHSR) and match accelerations (mACC) were found to be moderately positively correlated with weekly HSR (wtHSR) and weekly ACC volume (wtACC) (r = 0.497; p $<$ 0.01; r = 0.367; p $<$ 0.01), respectively. Moderate positive correlations were also found between mHSR, mACC and mHSR and mean training intensity of ACC (mtACC) (r = 0.366; p $<$ 0.01).

Conclusions: Weekly HSR and ACC training volume and intensity have moderate associations with match HSR and ACC loads. Coaches should prioritize weekly HSR and ACC during the training process, for ensuring that players perform more HSR and ACC actions during the subsequent match.

Keywords

Football

Athletic performance

Performance analysis

Sports training

Figures

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