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Load monitoring in football

PhD project

A tight match schedule in elite football makes it challenging to balance training and match load with recovery and rest. Being able to reliably measure the external load and understand how a given amount of load affects the experience of internal load, neuromuscular fatigue, recovery time and physical performance for the individual player may be the key to balancing this as best as possible.

Purpose

In this project we explore the association between external load, measured with player tracking devices and internal load (perceived exertion throughout the training session), and if there are individual differences in this relationship (Paper I). Furthermore, we investigate how external load in a football match affects the subsequent changes in blood markers for muscle damage, and the recovery of neuromuscular function and physical performance (Paper II). Finally, we explore to which extent a football match leads to ultrastructural damage to the muscle fibers, via Heat Shock Proteins (HSP) as proxy markers, and how this relates to fatigue and recovery of muscle function (Paper III).

Project description

A total of 99 football players participated in two different studies. In study I we followed the same players over several training sessions in a 32-week period and measured external load with player tracking devices and internal load with the session rating of perceived exertion-derived training load method (sRPE-TL; Paper I). In study II, we measured external load in three matches, one match per player, and followed the subsequent recovery process with measurements of creatine kinase (CK), myoglobin, countermovement jump (CMJ), 30 m sprint and YO-YO intermittent recovery test (Paper II), and the stress response in muscle fibers with analyses of HSP in muscle biopsies from m. vastus lateralis (Paper III).

Results

Håvard Wiig, Thor Einar Andersen, Live S. Luteberget and Matt Spencer. (2020). “Individual Response to External Training Load in Elite Football Players”. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. Vol. 15, no. 5, 
pp. 696–704. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2019-0453.

Håvard Wiig, Truls Raastad, Live S. Luteberget, Ingvar Ims and Matt Spencer. (2019). “External Load Variables Affect Recovery Markers up to 72 h After Semiprofessional Football Matches”. Frontiers in Physiology Vol. 10, DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2019.00689.

Håvard Wiig, Kristoffer T. Cumming, Vilde Handegaard, Jostein Stabell, Matt Spencer and Truls Raastad. (2022). “Muscular heat shock protein response and muscle damage after semi-professional football match”. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports. Vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 984–996. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.14148.

Project owner

Norwegian School of Sport Sciences

Group

Håvard Wiig, PhD candidate
Truls Raastad, Supervisor
Matthew Spencer, Supervisor
Thor Einar Andersen, Supervisor

 

 

Published Oct. 17, 2023 1:47 PM - Last modified Feb. 26, 2024 10:45 AM