Repeated-Sprint Performance in Team Sport Players: Associations with Measures of Aerobic Fitness, Metabolic Control and Locomotor Function

To examine the respective associations between indices of aerobic fitness, metabolic control and locomotor function and repeated sprint-performance, 61 team sport players performed: a repeated-sprint sequence (RSS), an incremental test to exhaustion to determine maximal oxygen uptake ((V) over dot O(2)max) and peak incremental test speed (Inc. test speed), and 2-4 submaximal runs to determine the time constant of the primary phase of. (V) over dotO(2) kinetics at exercise onset ((V) over dotO(2) ton) and cessation ((V) over dotO(2)tau(off)). The best (RSbest) sprint times and mean sprint times (RSmean) and the percent sprint decrement (%Dec) were calculated. RSmean was almost perfectly correlated with RSbest (r = 0.92;90%CL(0.88;0.95)), largely correlated with Inc. test speed (r = -0.71;90%CL(-0.79;-0.59)) and moderately correlated with (V) over dotO(2) max (r = -0.58;90%CL(-0.70;-0.43)); the correlations with (V) over dotO(2)tau(on) or (V) over dotO(2)tau(off) were unclear. For %Dec, the correlations with Inc. test speed, (V) over dotO(2)max and (V) over dotO(2)tau(on) were moderate (r = -0.41;90%CL(-0.56;-0.23)), small (r = -0.26;90%CL(-0.43;-0.06)) and small (r = 0.28;90%CL(0.09;0.46)), respectively. Stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that the only significant predictors of RSmean were RSbest and Inc. test speed (r 2 = 0.88). Inc. test speed and RSbest were also the only significant predictors of %Dec (r(2) = 0.26). Present results obtained in a large sample of team sport players highlight that locomotor factors (i.e., RSbest and Inc. test speed) show much larger associations with repeated-sprint performance than (V) over dotO(2) max and (V) over dotO(2) kinetics.