With today’s technology we can do a better job of developing and evaluating conditioning programs for sports that have traditionally been challenging to program for due to their varied energy system requirements. Sports like basketball, soccer, and Australian rules football can be challenging to program for. The May issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research has an article by Gastin et al which evaluates the impact of fitness and training variation on athlete performance during a playing season. The authors studied 25 elite Australian football players during their 22 week competitive season. The authors collected data on match performance, distance run in six minutes (aerobic fitness), 40 meter sprint (maximum speed), and six repeat 40-meter sprints (15 seconds recovery between each). In addition, player training load data was recorded using GPS data. All of this was then analyzed.
Interesting results from the study:
• As you’d expect, there’s a negative relationship between player age and performance on the sprint tests.
• There was a negative relationship between player age and match performance; but a positive relationship between player experience and match performance. I have some thoughts about this conflict later.
• There is a positive relationship between aerobic fitness (six minute run performance) and match performance.
• There is no relationship between sprint and repeated sprint performance and match performance.
• The training during the season did not seem to impact match performance.
At first, the fact that age negatively impacts performance but playing experience positively impacts performance seems to conflict. However, there are probably several things that are working here. First, not all players start playing a sport at the same age. So their chronological age and their training age may be very different. Second, there may be other confounding variables (like fitness and injuries) that cannot be accounted for with these numbers.
The training load that the athletes experienced did not have a negative impact on their match performance. By this I mean that changes in training load (increases or decreases) didn’t have an impact, which is good – it indicates solid planning on the part of the conditioning coach. A sharp change in training that reduced everyone’s performance in a match would be a bad thing.
Why no relationship between speed, repeated sprints, and performance? The authors seemed to be confused by this as well, pointing out that they even chose tests that were more similar to what the athletes do in match play. One reason is that the testing may not adequately reflect what the athletes do in match play. Another reason is that the sample studied is really similar in terms of sprint performance. Since this is looking at an elite team, all the athletes possess a high degree of speed and repeated sprint ability. Had this compared an elite team with a non-elite team, the differences might have been stark and this could have been an important variable.
It also needs to be realized is that the training loads seem to be incomplete, the training loads described are only referring to on-the-field training that is measurable with GPS technology. If the athletes are performing weight training, plyos, etc. this is not being factored in.
This is a fascinating study with real-world implications and provides an easy model for how a professional or elite team can use a little bit of technology to assess how their team is responding to conditioning and to determine what their needs are.
Gastin, P.B., Fahrner, B., Meyer, D., Robinson, D., and Cook, J.L. (2013). Influence of physical fitness, age, experience, and weekly training load on match performance in elite Australian football. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 27(5): 1272-1279.
