Relationships among Perceived Recovery, Vertical Jump And Change In Repeated Sprint Performance

Abstract

Recovery may be determined by using a counter movement vertical jump (CMJ). While a CMJ has been shown effective to evaluate recovery, there may be more efficient, less physically taxing alternatives such as the Perceived Recovery Status (PRS) Scale. The PRS is a non-invasive, and accurate psychophysiological tool designed to measure recovery and its correlation to performance. PURPOSE: To determine the efficacy of CMJ and PRS as methods for monitoring recovery between repeated sprint efforts. METHODS: Eight college-aged individuals (age=23±0.9 years; height=1.65±0.11 meters; weight=67.1±9.3.4 kg; percent body fat=17.5±8.4%) performed repeated sprints. The protocol consisted of three sets of eight 30 meter sprints on a non-motorized treadmill with 45 seconds of rest between each sprint. The sets were separated by 5 minutes of passive rest. Mean power output (MP) was measured during each sprint. RPE (overall) was recorded immediately following each sprint. Immediately before the next set of sprints PRS was recorded and a CMJ was performed on a force plate where maximal height was recorded. RESULTS: A 1-way repeated measures ANOVA showed a significant main effect of sprint set on RPE (p=0.04) and PRS (p<0.01). Subsequent pairwise comparisons revealed significant differences for RPE between sprint sets 1 and 2 (p=0.05), and in PRS between sprint sets 1 and 2 (p=0.001), and sprint sets 1 and 3 (p=0.02). Correlations showed the relationship between PRS and delta MP to be moderate, and significant at (R2=0.32) while the relationship between CMJ and MP was weak (R2=0.04). CONCLUSION: Current results suggest PRS may demonstrate a stronger relationship with change in repeated sprint performance within a session than CMJ. However, neither index of recovery was robust, and may indicate that these measures may be more appropriate for use between day-to-day training sessions (as previously established) and not necessarily to gauge recovery as in the current paradigm.