Spatiotemporal and Kinetic Determinants of Sprint Acceleration Performance in Soccer Players.

Munenori Murata,Ryu Nagahara,Hiroaki Kanehisa,Tetsuo Fukunaga,Yohei Takai

doi:10.3390/sports6040169

Munenori Murata, Ryu Nagahara + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/sports6040169

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Journal: Sports	Publication Date: Dec 9, 2018
Citations: 8	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Kanoya

Abstract

We aimed to elucidate spatiotemporal and kinetic determinants of sprint acceleration performance in soccer players. Thirty-seven male soccer players performed 60-m sprints. The spatiotemporal variables and ground reaction impulses were calculated over a 50-m distance. When controlling the influence of stature and body mass, change in running speed was correlated with the step length at the 1st–4th step section (r = 0.695), step frequency from the 9th to 20th step sections (r = 0.428 to 0.484), braking impulse during the 17th–20th step section (r = 0.328), propulsive impulse from the 1st to 8th step sections (r = 0.738 and 0.379), net anteroposterior impulse for all step sections (r = 0.384 to 0.678), and vertical impulse from the 9th–12th step section and thereafter (r = −0.355 to −0.428). These results confirmed that an effective acceleration is probably accomplished by a greater step length originated in greater propulsive impulse during the initial acceleration phase (to the 8th step), a higher step frequency through smaller vertical impulse and smaller braking impulse during the middle and later acceleration phases (from the 9th step), as well as greater net anteroposterior impulse during the entire acceleration phase.

Highlights

Sprint performance, especially acceleration performance, is decisive for attacking play toward the goal in a soccer game [1,2]
From the findings of a prior study, which investigated the relationship between sprint performance and spatiotemporal variables for soccer players [7], the running speed was correlated with step length (SL) during the initial and middle acceleration phases
The current findings indicate that a greater SL during the initial acceleration phase soccer players

Summary

Introduction

Especially acceleration performance, is decisive for attacking play toward the goal in a soccer game [1,2]. Improving sprint acceleration ability is of great importance for soccer players to beat opposition competitors [3] For this reason, many studies have monitored sprint performance of soccer players during training and match games [4,5,6]. For rugby players, it was verified that SF was higher in backs (faster) group than forwards (slower) group while SL showed moderate relationship with sprinting performance within forwards players during the initial three steps [9]. These conflicting findings in the previous studies partially resulted from the difference in variables used, in addition to differences in performance level and characteristics of athletes.

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Conclusion