RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DIFFERENT MEASURES OF AEROBIC FITNESS AND REPEATED-SPRINT ABILITY IN ELITE SOCCER PLAYERS

da Silva, JF, Guglielmo, LGA, and Bishop, D. Relationship between different measures of aerobic fitness and repeated-sprint ability in elite soccer players. J Strength Cond Res 24(8): 2115-2121, 2010-The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between physiological variables related to aerobic fitness (maximal oxygen uptake: (V) over dotO(2)max; the minimum velocity needed to reach (V) over dotO(2)max: v(V) over dotO(2)max; velocity at the onset of blood-lactate accumulation: vOBLA) and repeated-sprint ability (RSA) in elite soccer players. Twenty-nine Brazilian soccer players (17.9 +/- 1.0 years; 178.7 +/- 5.2 cm; 73.6 +/- 6.7 kg; 11.1 +/- 1.3% body fat) from 2 national level teams (A, B) took part in the study. Subjects first performed an incremental test on a treadmill to determine their (V) over dotO(2)max, v(V)over dotO(2)max and vOBLA. After at least 48 hours, subjects performed an RSA test consisting of 7 34.2-m sprints interspersed with 25 seconds of active recovery, to determine the mean time (MT), the fastest time (FT) and the Sprint decrement (S-dec). Pearson product moment correlations and multiple regressions were used to assess the relationship between aerobic fitness and RSA variables (FT, MT, S-dec, [La] Peak). An analysis of variance, followed by a post hoc test (Tukey), was used to compare the 7 sprints of the RSA test. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. A significant negative correlation was found between both vOBLA and v(V) over dotO(2)max and MT during the RSA test (r = -0.49, p < 0.01; r = -0.38, p < 0.05, respectively). There were also negative correlations between S-dec and vOBLA (r = -0.54), v(V) over dotO(2)max (r = -0.49) and (V) over dotO(2)max (r = -0.39). The multiple regression revealed that the aerobic (vOBLA) and anaerobic (FT) components explained approximately 89% of the variance of MT. The results of this study demonstrated that RSA is more strongly correlated with vOBLA and v(V) over dotO(2)max than the more commonly measured (V) over dotO(2)max.