The Importance of In-Season Strength and Power Training in Football Athletes: A Brief Review and Recommendations

Football (soccer) performance requires a diversity of physical attributes and biomotor abilities, such as strength, power, jump mechanics, repeat sprint ability, change of direction and on-ball skills. In-season training focus is often based on metabolic conditioning activities such as small sided games, tactical and technical football drills and traditional running drills in order to further develop and maintain aerobic and anaerobic capacity. However, this often comes at the expense of strength training, which may be compromised for additional time on the pitch. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to provide an evidenced-based approach, to the periodisation of strength and power during a football season. Secondly, the increased popularity of incorporating on-pitch pre-rehabilitation and injury prevention programs that utilise unstable exercises during the entire season to maintain strength and power will also be discussed. Collectively, literature suggests that strength and power maintenance can be achieved with one strength session per week for football athletes. However, it is important for strength and conditioning coaches to continue the development of strength and power characteristics during a football season, which not only assists on-pitch performance but may also attribute to reduction of injury risk. Evidence supporting the effectiveness of on-pitch pre-rehabilitation programming centred on unstable training is lacking at this time.

Impact of Active and Passive Hypoxia as Re-Warm-Up Activities on Rugby Players’ Performance

The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of four types of re-warm-up (R-WU) activity, namely rest in normoxia (RN) at FiO2 = 20.9%, rest in hypoxia (RH) at FiO2 = 15%, activity (4 × 5 jumps/15 s) in normoxia (AN) and activity in hypoxia (AH) on physical performance. Ten elite male rugby players completed a 15-min warm-up followed by one of the 15-min randomized R-WU strategies. After R-WU, countermovement jump (CMJ), 20 m sprint and repeat sprint ability (RSA) tests were assessed. Compared to passive strategies (RN and RH), tympanic temperature was higher after active R-WU (AN and AH) (p = 0.016). Higher values of CMJ height (p = 0.037) and 20 m sprint (p = 0.02) were found in AH than in RN. In addition, mean RSA was lower (p = 0.008) in AH than in RN and RH. Blood lactate concentration was higher (p = 0.007) after RN and AN strategies than after AH. Muscle O2 saturation (p = 0.021) and total Hb (p = 0.042) were higher after AH than after the other three conditions and after RN, respectively. Therefore, an active R-WU under hypoxia could be useful to elite rugby players, once it had attenuated the decline in tympanic temperature during a 15-min period after warm-up, improving jump, sprint and RSA performance.

The Influence of Repeat Sprint Training on the Senior Swimmers' Aerobic Capacity

It would be recommended to pay swimming the proper attention, both from the perspective of knowing the effort involved and its training methodology. New studies have shown that there are other ways of getting results, sometimes in a shorter period of time than in the case of classic training. A new method, used in this study, is repeat sprint training. The difference between the sprinters' technique and the long distance swimmers' technique is mainly in regard to the race rhythm, more than the specialization of the swimmer. The hypothesis of this research is that repeat sprint training influences/ improves the swimmers' aerobic capacity. At the end, an increase was observed in the maximum alactic and lactic powers, of 50% and 83%, respectively, after the training, in all experimental group subjects.

Physical Fitness Characteristics of High-level Youth Football Players: Influence of Playing Position

The aim of this study was to determine whether the speed, agility, aerobic and anaerobic capacities of football players varied by playing positions. Elite youth football players (n = 123, age = 15.7 ± 0.5 years) who played in six different positions, as goalkeepers (GK), full backs (FB), central defenders (CD), wide midfielders (WM), central midfielders (CM), and attackers (AT), were assessed. Multivariate analysis of variances was used to compare the following variables: Linear running sprint for 5 m (S5) and 10 m (S10), flying sprint for 20 m (F20), agility 505 test with turn on the dominant (A505D) and non-dominant leg (A505N), agility K-test, Yo-Yo intermittent recovery (YYIR1) test and repeat sprint ability (RSA) test. The results showed significant influence of playing positions on linear-running sprint performance (F1,123 = 6.19, p < 0.01, ηp2 = 0.23). Midfielders reached significantly higher performance levels (CM = 2.44 ± 0.08 s, WM = 2.47 ± 0.13 s) in the A505N test compared to GK (2.61 ± 0.23 s). Outfield players had significantly higher performance in both YYIR1 and RSA tests compared to GK (p < 0.01). The results of this study may provide insightful strategies for coaches and clinical practitioners for developing position-specific conditioning programs.