Abstract
Background and Objectives: Interpretation of the load variations across a period seems important to control the weekly progression or variation of the load, or to identify in-micro- and mesocycle variations. Thus, the aims of this study were twofold: (a) to describe the in-season variations of training monotony, training strain and acute:chronic workload ratio (ACWR) through session ratings of perceived exertion (s-RPE), total distance and high-speed running (HSR); and (b) to compare those variations between starters and non-starters. Materials and Methods: Seventeen professional players from a European First League team participated in this study. They were divided in two groups: starters (n = 9) and non-starters (n = 8). The players were monitored daily over a 41-week period of competition where 52 matches occurred during the 2015–2016 in-season. Through the collection of s-RPE, total distance and HSR, training monotony, training strain and ACWR were calculated for each measure, respectively. Data were analyzed across ten mesocycles (M: 1 to 10). Repeated measures ANOVA was used with the Bonferroni post hoc test to compare M and player status. Results: The results revealed no differences between starters vs. non-starters (p > 0.05). M6 had a greater number of matches and displayed higher values for monotony (s-RPE, total distance and HSR), strain (only for total distance) and ACWR (s-RPE, TD and HSR). However, the variation patterns for all indexes displayed some differences. Conclusions: The values of both starters and non-starters showed small differences, thus suggesting that the adjustments of training workloads that had been applied over the season helped to reduce differences according to the player status. Even so, there were some variations over the season (microcycles and mesocycles) for the whole team. This study could be used as a reference for future coaches, staff and scientists.
Highlights
Acute load, chronic load, acute:chronic workload ratio (ACWR, representing the relationship between acute and chronic workloads) [9], training monotony (TM) and training strain (TS) [10] are some examples of how to control load taking into consideration different measures
TSs-rate of perceived exertion (RPE) occurred in week 41 for both starters (8498.0 AU) and non-starters (15,263.9 AU), while the lowest values occurred in week 30 for starters (110.2 AU) and week 19 for nonstarters (1310.9 AU)
The highest ACWRs-RPE occurred in week 21 for starters (1.6 AU) and week 10 for non-starters (1.5 AU), while the lowest ACWRs-RPE occurred in week 36 for starters (0.5 AU) and week 17 for non-starters (0.7)
Summary
Monitoring of the training load in soccer has become popular, whereby two main dimensions of load are considered [1]: (i) internal and (ii) external. Calculating workload measures is a part of the strategies to control the weekly progression or variation of the load, or to identify within-week variations [8]. Interpretation of the load variations across a period seems important to control the weekly progression or variation of the load, or to identify in-micro- and mesocycle variations. The aims of this study were twofold: (a) to describe the in-season variations of training monotony, training strain and acute:chronic workload ratio (ACWR) through session ratings of perceived exertion (s-RPE), total distance and high-speed running (HSR); and (b) to compare those variations between starters and non-starters. Data were analyzed across ten mesocycles (M: 1 to 10)
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