Abstrakt
BACKGROUND:Ability to accerrelate, deccelerate, and change directions among soccer players are not well studied, especially at elite level.
PURPOSE: To analyse speed and agility among elite soccer players, especially acceleration, deceleration and change directions at 180 degree turn by each leg, dominant leg (DL) and non-dominant leg (NL).
METHODS:A cross-sectional study was performed. The study participants consisted of 35 soccer playes (age = 20.2 +- 0.9 years, height = 187.0 +- 6.5, body mass = 82.1 +- 3.3 kg) who play at top leage at Czech professional male soccer league. The participants performed two trials of the agility 505 test, and each leg was used per trial. In addition to time to complete the agility 505 test, movement kinematics were also assessed using 2D kinematic analysis.
Main outcome variables included: initial speed at which a player enters the measured section (v1); final speed at which a player leaves the measured section (v2); deceleration speed before the turn - speed in the third step before the turn (vd3), in the second step before the turn (vd2) and the first step before the turn (vd1), and acceleration speed after the turn in the first step (va1), second step (va2) and the third step (v3). We used Pearson correlation coefficient for analysing the data.
RESULTS: In turning off the right and left leg the subjects' performance times revealed low correlation (r=.24 and p=.165). Total time to complete the agility 505 test had significant correlations with following parameters when turning with DL: v1 (r=-.79, p=.00), va2 (r=-.38, p=.03), va3 (r=-.42, p=.01), vd2 (r=-.40, p=.02), vd3 (r=-.50, p=.00) and v2 (r=-.61, p=.00). Conversely, no significant correlation was found for the remaining variables. However, we found significant correlations between va2 vs vd2 (r=.69, p=.00) and va3 vs vd3 (r=.37, p=.03) when DL was used. Interestingly, higher correlations were detected on NL: va1 vs vd1 (r=.60, p=.00), va2 vs vd2 (r=.69, p=.00) and va3 vs vd3 (r=.61, p=.00) compared to DL.
CONCLUSIONS: Findings of this study revealed low correlation between compared sides. The better deceleration phase before 180 degree turn is a key for improving the acceleration phase following the cut. Supported by GACR 19-12150S, UNCE HUM32