Determining age-specific velocity thresholds for elite youth female soccer players

Figures & data

Table 1. Half-match observations contributing to the determination of age-specific velocity thresholds for elite youth female soccer.

Playing Position	U14			U16
	1^st Half	2^nd Half	Total	1^st Half	2^nd Half	Total
Central Defenders	36	33	69	38	33	71
Wide Defenders	40	38	78	35	35	70
Central Midfielders	63	46	109	48	39	87
Wide Midfielders	29	32	61	35	23	58
Forwards	28	24	52	27	17	44
All	196	173	369	183	147	330

Table 2. Youth and specific age-group velocity thresholds for elite female soccer players computed using a Spectral Clustering approach and estimated means (90% CI) from linear mixed model.

Velocity Thresholds	High-Speed Running (m·s^−1)	Very-High Speed Running (m·s^−1)	Sprinting (m·s^−1)
Senior*	3.46 (3.40–3.52)	5.29 (5.23–5.35)	6.26 (6.20–6.32)
Youth	3.00 (2.87–3.13)	4.83 (4.73–4.93)	5.76 (5.69–5.83)
U16	3.09 (2.91–3.28)	4.94 (4.80–5.08)	5.86 (5.77–5.96)
U14	2.91 (2.73–3.08)	4.73 (4.59–4.86)	5.66 (5.56–5.75)

*Senior velocity thresholds established by Park et al. (2019)

Figure 1. Estimated mean differences (±SE) for position-specific pairwise comparisons of A) high-speed running, B) very high-speed running, and C) sprinting velocity thresholds estimated from the linear mixed model. Effect size (ES ±90% CI) and p-values are also presented per comparison.CD = central defenders, WD = wide defenders, CM = central midfielders, WM = wide midfielders, FWD = forwards.

Figure 2. Distance (m) covered during a half of A) U16 and B) U14 elite youth female soccer match-play, within low-speed running (LSR), high-speed running (HSR), very high-speed running (VHSR) and sprinting (SPR) velocity zones, when using senior, youth or age-group velocity thresholds, estimated from the second linear mixed model. Estimated mean differences, p-values and effect size (ES ±90% CI) are also presented for a) senior v youth; b) senior v age-group; c) youth v age-group velocity threshold pairwise-comparisons.

Park LA, Scott D, Lovell R. 2019. Velocity zone classification in elite women’s football: where do we draw the lines? Sci Med Football. 3(1):21–28. doi:10.1080/24733938.2018.1517947.

 Google Scholar