The Effects of Exercise Difficulty and Time-of-Day on the Perception of the Task and Soccer Performance in Child Soccer Players.

Liwa Masmoudi,Mohamed Amine Bouzid,Omar Boukhris,Adnene Gharbi,Thomas Rosemann,Cain C T Clark,Hamdi Chtourou,Beat Knechtle,Khaled Trabelsi,Cyrine H’Mida,Nizar Souissi

doi:10.3390/children8090793

Abstract

In soccer, accurate kicking skills are important determinants of successful performance. A successful kick must meet several criteria, including speed, accuracy, and timing. In fact, players who are able to kick the ball more accurately under various difficulties, such as time pressure, space constraints, the opponent’s pressure, and the distance between the kicking point and the goal, have a clear advantage during soccer games. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of exercise difficulty and time-of-day on perceived task difficulty and kicking performance. Accordingly, 32 boys (age: 11 ± 0.7 years; height: 1.45 ± 0.07 m; body-mass: 38.9 ± 7.8 kg) performed shooting accuracy tests under two difficulty levels (distance (long-distance (LD) vs. short-distance (SD)) and time pressure (Without-time-pressure (WTP) vs. With-time-pressure (TP)) at 08:00 h and 17:00 h. Absolute-error, variable-error, and constant-error were evaluated during the kicking tasks, in addition to ball velocity and shooting quality. Moreover, rating-of-perceived-exertion score (RPE), feeling-scale (FS), and perceived difficulty were completed immediately at the end of each test. The results showed that shooting quality was not affected by the time-of-day, but it was better in WTP vs. TP (p < 0.05), and in SD vs. LD (p < 0.05), respectively. Higher values for FS and lower values for RPE were observed in the morning compared to the afternoon (p < 0.05) and in WTP vs. TP (p < 0.05). In conclusion, specific soccer skills of boys were not time-of-day dependent, but they may be associated with time pressure and task difficulty.

Highlights

The influence of time-of-day effects on psycho-physiological, cognitive, and physical performance assessments has been widely studied [1]
In children, previous studies have reported that muscle power [2], strength [3], agility [4], and aerobic fitness [2,5,6] were better at the end of the afternoon compared to the morning hours
Discrepancies between the findings reported in the literature could be related to differences in the mental load of the task, the type of the task, and the perceived difficulty

Summary

Introduction

The influence of time-of-day effects on psycho-physiological, cognitive, and physical performance assessments has been widely studied [1]. Discrepancies between the findings reported in the literature could be related to differences in the mental load of the task, the type of the task, and the perceived difficulty. In this context, Elghoul et al [9,10] investigated the time-of-day effects on dartthrowing performance from short and long distance and the perception of the difficulty of the task. The authors reported better performance in both long and short distance at 17:00 h compared to 07:00 h, concomitant to significant reductions in perceived task difficulty from 07:00 h to 17:00 h

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