The variability of physical match demands in elite women’s football

ABSTRACT

Peak locomotor demands are considered as key metrics for conditioning drills prescription and training monitoring. However, research in female football has focused on absolute values when reporting match demands, leading to sparse information being provided regarding the degrees of variability of such metrics. Thus, the aims of this study were to investigate the sources of variability of match physical performance parameters in female football players and to provide a framework for the interpretation of meaningful changes between matches.

54 female players from four top-level clubs were monitored during one season. GPS APEX (STATSports, Northern Ireland), with a sampling frequency of 10 Hz, were used in 60 official matches (n = 393) to determine the full-match and 1-min peak locomotor demands of total distance (TD), high-speed running distance (HSRD), sprint distance (SpD), accelerations and decelerations (Acc/Dec) and peak speed (Pspeed). For each variable, the between-team, between-match, between-position, between-player, and within-player variability was estimated using linear mixed-effect modelling.

With exception to SpD (29.4 vs. 31.9%), all other metrics presented a higher observed match-to-match variability in the 1-min peaks than in the full-match (6.5 vs. 4.6%; 18.7% vs. 15.9%; 12.9 vs. 11.7%; for TD, HSRD and Acc/Dec, respectively). With the exception of SpD, higher changes in 1-min peaks than in full-match values are required to identify meaningful changes in each variable.

Different sources of variability seem to impact differently the match physical performance of female football players. Furthermore, to identify meaningful changes, higher changes in 1-min peaks than in full-match values are required.

KEYWORDS:

• Women’s football
• match-to-match variability
• performance analysis
• high-speed running
• accelerations
• peak locomotor demands

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Astrid Grøttå Ree, Helene Davidsen Moa, Thomas Lyngbø, Mads Pettersen, Elias Koppen, and Atle Ingebrigtsen for their help in the data collection.

Author contributions

Conceptualization, IB, AKW, MBR and SAP; Data curation, AKW; Formal analysis, AKW; Investigation, IB and AKW; Methodology, IB, AKW, DJ, MBR and SAP; Project administration, SAP; Supervision, DJ and SAP; Writing—original draft, IB; Writing—review & editing, AKW, DJ, MBR, SP and SAP. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).ed

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Tromsø Research Foundation and UiT, The Arctic University of Norway. The funding body had no role in designing the study and data collection, analysis, interpretation, and in writing of the study. There is no grant/award number to report;Tromsø Research Foundation and UiT, The Arctic University of Norway.