Differences in Player Position Running Velocity at Lactate Thresholds Among Male Professional German Soccer Players.

René Schwesig,Stephan Schulze,Souhail Hermassi,Lars Reinhardt,Kevin G Laudner,Karl-Stefan Delank

doi:10.3389/fphys.2019.00886

Abstract

This study investigated the differences in running velocities at specific lactate thresholds among male German soccer players. One hundred fifty-two professional (3rd league: n = 78; 4th league: n = 74) male soccer players (mean ± SD; age: 24.7 ± 4.37 years, body mass: 80.8 ± 7.33 kg, body height: 1.83 ± 0.06 m) volunteered for the investigation. Players were categorized as goalkeepers, central defenders, central midfielders, wings and forward. Players completed a treadmill test, at incremental speeds, to determine running velocity at different blood lactate concentrations (v2 = 2 mmol/l; v4 = 4 mmol/l; and v6 = 6 mmol/l). In addition, the largest difference between positions for running velocity was found at the lactate threshold v2 (p = 0.005). The running data revealed that only goalkeepers had significantly lower velocities at the lactate thresholds compared to outfield players. The central midfielders showed the highest average performance level at the lactate thresholds (v2: 12.5 ± 1.20 km/h; v4: 15.2 ± 1.14 km/h; and v6: 16.6 ± 1.14 km/h). In conclusion, this study provides soccer and position-specific reference data for the running performance of male professional German soccer players to evaluate the endurance performance in a standardized way. In this context, future research should extend the database for the first and second leagues. Further research assessing running performance during competition matches over the entire season is required to validate the endurance test performance data.

Highlights

Soccer is one of the most widely played and complex sports in the world, where players need technical, tactical, and physical skills to succeed
Soccer is classified as a high intensity intermittent team sport (Di Salvo et al, 2009; Krustrup et al, 2009) with high demands on aerobic endurance, strength and the strength derivatives of speed and power
While wide midfielders covered the highest distances in the high intensity speed zones (19.1–23.0 km/h: 738 m; >23.0 km/h: 446 m), central midfielders were the players with the highest volume in the middle intensity zones (11.1–14.0 km/h: 1965 m; 14.1–19.0 km/h: 2,116 m)

Summary

Introduction

Soccer is one of the most widely played and complex sports in the world, where players need technical, tactical, and physical skills to succeed. During competitive soccer match play, elite players cover about 10,000–11,000 m at an average intensity close to the anaerobic threshold, being 80–90% of maximal heart frequency (Mohr et al, 2003; Stølen et al, 2005) or 70–80% of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) (McMillan et al, 2005b). In line with Mohr et al (2003), central defenders covered the shortest total distance (10,627 m) and distance by high speed running (19.1–23.0 km/h: 397 m; >23.0 km/h: 215 m) They investigated half time related differences in sprinting distance during competitive matches. It has been observed that soccer players reach peak running speeds close to 32 km/h during matchplay (Rampinini et al, 2007a,b) This quality of sprinting speed depends on several factors including the level of practice and the players’ age (Maffulli et al, 2002; Al Haddad et al, 2015). It has been shown that elite players are faster during the first 10 m of a 30 m sprint test than amateurs (Maffulli et al, 2002)

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