Examination of Physiological and Performance Responses of Repeated Sprint Tests in Football Players

Purpose: This research was conducted to examine the physiological and performance responses of repeated sprint tests in football players. Method: 14 amateur male football players participated in the research. Measurements were made at Bingol University Sports Hall. Height, body weight, age, sports year, body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage (BFP) measurements were taken for defining characteristics of the participants. For repeated sprint measurements, participants participated in straight repeated sprint (6x25m; StRST), 180 degrees shuttle repeated sprint (6x(2x12,5m); ShRST) and 100 degrees repeated change of direction sprint (6x25m; RCODST) tests with 25 second passive rest in random order on three separate days. The best sprint time (BST), total sprint time (TST) and performance decreasing percentage (PDP) values of the participants were determined as performance responses after three different RST. In addition, resting heart rates (HRrest) and the warm-up heart rates (HRwarm) were taken with the help of polar clock. Findings: The mean age of the participants in the study was 20.42 +/- 1.39 years, sport year 4.71 +/- 3.83 years, height 1.74 +/- 0.05 m, body weight 64.77 +/- 7.24 kg, BMI 21.22 +/- 1.97 kg/height2 and BFP 11.20 +/- 3.42 (%). There were no significant differences in the values of HRrest before warm-up and HRwarm before exercise (p>0.05) as a result of the comparison of the different sprint tests. BST and TST values were significantly different at p<0.001 as a result of different sprint tests. The results of the Bonferroni multiple analysis to determine which group the difference is from show in Table 2 that StRST-BST values are better than ShRST-BST and RCODST-BST. Similarly, StRST-TST values are better than ShRST-TST and RCODST-TST values. There was no significant difference in RPEmax values as a result of comparison of different sprint tests. Results: There was no significant difference in the physiological variables and RPEmax values of the participants. However, StRST has been found to give more positive performance responses than ShRST and RCODST.