The accumulated effects of exercise-induced stress in male athletes during a national Ultimate Frisbee competition across four days

Abstract

Introduction: Ultimate Frisbee (UF) is a field-based team-sport, involving high intensity activities such as jumping, sprinting, acceleration, deceleration and change-of-direction with short recovery periods. Whilst a number of studies have reported the physical demands of an UF match, the level of exercise-induced stress following a match is yet to be determined, particularly during a competition. Understanding the level of stress induced by an UF match may improve recovery strategies and optimise athlete preparedness during an UF competition involving multiple matches across days. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the accumulated effects of exercise-induced stress during a national UF competition across four days in male athletes. Methods Twelve elite male UF players (age 29 ± 2 years; height 179.6 ± 5.1 cm; and body mass 80.0 ± 6.0 kg) who competed in the Australian Men's National UF competition in 2019 volunteered for this study. The competition was held across four consecutive days (D1, D2, D3 and D4), with athletes undertaking 1-3 matches per day. Every morning (08:00-12:00), within the hour prior to the first match, the following assessments were undertaken for each athlete: delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS) using a 1-5 Likert scale (‘no soreness’ to ‘very sore’), leg power during a drop-jump from a 30 cm box, and speed during a 10m sprint. During the drop-jump protocol, athletes jumped on a force plate with a dowel on their shoulder that hosted an accelerometer. Peak velocity and muscular power was derived from the accelerometer, whilst jump height, contact time and reactive strength index (RSI: flight time/contact time) were quantified from the force plate. Results: When compared to D1, the level of DOMS was significantly increased on D2, D3 and D4. Conversely, peak jump velocity and jump height were significantly decreased on D2 and D4 while RSI and muscular power were significantly decreased on D3 and D4. No significant differences were identified across days for contact time and 10m sprint time. Discussion: In the current study, multiple UF matches performed in a single day induced stress sufficient for DOMS and impair neuromuscular performance during a drop jump task on subsequent days. In addition, an accumulation of exercise-induced stress throughout the UF competition was observed with DOMS peaking and the majority of drop-jump performance measures impaired during the last day. Thus, appropriate recovery strategies should be implemented to minimise carry-over effects of exercise-induced stress across days of an UF competition.