Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the diurnal variation in some specific skills performance during field testing in boy’s footballer. In a balanced and randomized study design, 15 boys (mean ± SD; age 12.7 ± 1.1 years; height 1.54 ± 9.1 m; body mass 45.1 ± 3.2 kg) participated in the study. Subjects performed some specific soccer skills (kicking accuracy, ball control with the body, ball control with the head, coordination test, zigzag running (i.e., agility), zigzag with the Ball (i.e., dribbling) and the skill index (i.e., the ratio of the zigzag running without and with the ball) at two different times of day: 07:00 and 17:00 h. Moreover, intra-aural temperature was measured at both time-of-days. Intra-aural temperature was higher in the evening than the morning (P P P P In conclusion, a diurnal variation in intra-aural temperature, agility and dribbling were shown to be present. No time-of-day effect was observed for the coordination, skill index, kicking accuracy and juggling performance.
Highlights
Football games may take place at various times throughout the day whilst training may be held in the morning or afternoon
There was no significant time of day effect for other skills including juggling performance (Ball control with the body and with the head), coordination tests, skill index and kicking accuracy (Table 1)
Our results showed a significant diurnal variation in intra-aural temperature as it was described in previous studies (Reilly et al, 2004a, 2004b, 2007) (Figure 1)
Summary
Football games may take place at various times throughout the day whilst training may be held in the morning or afternoon. Circadian rhythm in exercise performance for soccer players with morning lows and evening peaks are common findings in many laboratory tests performed on cycle ergometer (Chtourou et al, 2010a, 2012b; Hamouda et al, 2012; Aloui et al, 2012). Each test is measured in athletes, it is important that the test include the activity pattern of the specific sport. Testing soccer should be performed on field and including some soccer skills, as opposed to a cycle ergometer to improve the specificity in the activity patterns in the football. A little attention has been paid to circadian and diurnal rhythms in skill measures, those related to a particular soccer game
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