External peak demands are not affected by playing venue (home vs away) during official male basketball games

ABSTRACT

Aim

To quantify and compare the external peak demands (PDs) encountered according to team’s venue (home vs. away) in under-18 years (U18), male basketball players.

Methods

12 basketball players had external load variables monitored across 16 official games using inertial movement units (IMUs). PDs were calculated across 1-min and 5-min time windows for PlayerLoad™ (PL). Linear mixed models for repeated measures were used to compare PDs for PL according to playing venue (home vs. away).

Results

Regarding 1- and 5-min time windows, no significant differences (p > 0.05, small effect size) were apparent between playing venues.

Conclusions

External PDs remain consistent (small effects) regardless of playing venue in U18, male basketball players. Accordingly, playing venue may not be a key determinant of external PD attained during official games.

KEYWORDS:

• Team sports
• worst case scenario
• most demanding scenarios
• game location
• load monitoring
• game demands

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially funded by the Spanish National Agency of Investigation through the project “Scientific and Technological Support to analyze the Training Workload of Basketball teams according to sex, level of the players and season period” (PID2019-106614GBI00) MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.