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Publications (67)
Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess the concurrent validity of a contact mat against force plates to measure jump height in countermovement jump (CMJ) and squat jump (SJ) in professional soccer players.
Methods: 23 male professional soccer players performed the CMJ and SJ, which were concurrently recorded using a portable contact mat (Smar...
De-training effects of physical performance characteristics over a 4-week winter off-season period in highly trained youth soccer players-no need to consider biological maturity. BLUF Highly trained U14 to U16 youth soccer players were able to maintain explosive power, reactive strength, and maximal strength characteristics while cardiovascular fit...
The maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max) is a critical factor for endurance performance in soccer. Novel wearable technology may allow frequent assessment of V̇O2max during non-fatiguing warm-up runs of soccer players with minimal interference to soccer practice. The aim of this study was to assess the validity of VO2max provided by a consumer grade smar...
Thron, M, Woll, A, Doller, L, Quittmann, OJ, Härtel, S, Ruf, L, and Altmann, S. Physiological and locomotor profiling enables to differentiate between sprinters, 400-m runners, and middle-distance runners. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000–000, 2024—Different approaches exist for characterizing athletes, e.g., physiological and locomotor profiling. Th...
Purpose : To compute reference centiles for 5- and 30-m sprint times relative to chronological and skeletal age in youth soccer players. Subsequently, to compare individual’s sprint performance scores derived from the chronological and skeletal age reference centiles. Methods : Sprint times were collected for a sample of male U11 to U19 soccer play...
Purpose
Locomotor profiling using anaerobic speed reserve (ASR) enables insights into athletes’ physiological and neuromuscular contributing factors and prescription of high-intensity training beyond maximal aerobic speed (MAS). This systematic review aimed to determine the validity and reliability of different methods to assess the characteristics...
Introduction: In soccer, coaches try to enhance the performance of their athletes in physical, technical, and tactical aspects. In this context, match data can potentially help to objectively quantify the behavior of the players on the pitch to ultimately optimize training processes and performance. Therefore, this chapter analyzes how coaches in s...
While the tactical behavior of soccer players differs between specific
phases of play (offense, defense, offensive transition, defensive
transition), little is known about successful behavior of players
during defensive transition (switching behavior from offense
to defense). Therefore, this study aims to analyze the group tactic
of rest defense (d...
Sprint and jump performances represent performance-determining parameters in individual andteam sports. Fluctuations in performance depending on the daytime raise the question of the best time to train and compete. Given the scarce research on females, this study aimed to analyze the influence of daytime on sprint and jump performances and to inves...
• Given the rising interest in assessing and improving curved-sprint performance in soccer, we conducted a pilot training intervention consisting of either 12 sessions of curved-sprint or linear-sprint training in amateur players
• Based on previous studies and the principle of specificity, we expected mainly task-specific and only limited transfer...
Despite load monitoring being considered an integral part of targeted performance management, including injury and illness prevention, there is currently no consensus of an effective monitoring system in professional soccer. Thus, the aims were to apply an integrative load monitoring approach, previously established in rink-hockey, in professional...
The aims of this study were (i) to compare the sprint times between linear-sprint (LS) and curved-sprint (CS) tests of different radii, and (ii) to examine the relationships between sprint times in these tests in soccer players. Nineteen elite youth male soccer players (age, 18.6 ± 0.6 years) completed an LS test and three CS tests with different r...
The interest in sports performance analysis is rising and tracking data holds high potential for game analysis in team sports due to its accuracy and informative content. Together with machine learning approaches one can obtain deeper and more objective insights into the performance structure. In soccer, the analysis of the defense was neglected in...
In soccer, the offensive style of play describes characteristic behavioral features of the players at team level during the offensive phase of matches. This study aimed to investigate the effect of offensive playing style (i.e., while in ball possession) on physical and technical match performance during offensive play as well as success-related fa...
The interest in tactical analysis in soccer has increased in the latest years, especially with the growing availability of player tracking data. With it, the defending team's compact organization, which is considered by practitioners to be an important factor in defense, was repeatedly examined. However, the connection between this defensive princi...
Careful load management is needed to optimize the physical capacity, a key performance component, of soccer players. The training load of soccer players is often expressed as a percentage of match load. However, no study has yet evaluated how training match load ratios are affected by using either a player-specific or position-specific reference fo...
Purpose.Locomotor profiling using anaerobic speed reserve (ASR) enables insights into athletes’ physiological and neuromuscular contributing factors and prescription of high-intensity training beyond maximal aerobic speed (MAS). Several methods have been developed to assess characteristics of ASR, i.e., methods to assess MAS and maximal sprinting s...
This study aimed to analyse the influence of effective playing time on physical match performance according to playing position in professional soccer. Official match data from 267 matches (3,731 single observations) during the 2018/2019 season of the German Bundesliga were used and the effective playing time (duration of play after subtracting the...
Introduction: Endurance exercise alters whole-body as well as skeletal muscle metabolism and physiology, leading to improvements in performance and health. However, biological mechanisms underlying the body’s adaptations to different endurance exercise protocols are not entirely understood.
Methods: We applied a multi-platform metabolomics approach...
Schnelligkeit im Allgemeinen und Agilität im Speziellen stellen leistungsbestimmende Faktoren in zahlreichen Mannschaftssportarten dar. Agilität umfasst dabei nicht nur physische Komponenten wie Beschleunigungen und Richtungswechsel, sondern auch kognitive Komponenten wie Wahrnehmung, Antizipation und Entscheidungsfindung. Eine typische Aktion aus...
The aim of this study was to quantify and compare various external match load measures in three age groups and leagues in male soccer (U18 in highest league of their age group vs U21 in fourth highest league vs first team in highest league). In this retrospective observational cohort study accelerations, decelerations, absolute and relative high-sp...
Recently, the availability of big amounts of data enables analysts to dive deeper into the constraints of performance in various team sports. While offensive analyses in football have been extensively conducted, the evaluation of defensive performance is underrepresented in this sport. Hence, the aim of this study was to analyze successful defensiv...
Purpose:
This study aimed to examine the responsiveness of commonly used measurement instruments to a short training camp by examining the time course of psychophysiological responses in high-level youth soccer players.
Methods:
Monitoring was carried out in 14 U15 male soccer players of 1 professional youth academy. Players provided data 3 days...
Objectives: Fluctuations of physical performance and biological responses during a repetitive daily 24-h cycle are known as circadian rhythms. These circadian rhythms can influence the optimal time of day for endurance performance and related parameters which can be crucial in a variety of sports disciplines. The current study aimed to evaluate the...
The tactical formation is considered an important factor in soccer, however, changes in tactical formation during matches (ingame)
and the distinction between offensive and defensive formations has rarely been considered in previous studies analyzing
match performance. Therefore, objectives of this studywere to investigate the following research qu...
Introduction: Maximal aerobic speed (MAS), usually measured by cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) on a treadmill, is gaining popularity in soccer to determine aerobic performance. Several field tests are used to estimate MAS, although, gold standard methods are still not clarified. Therefore, this work aims 1) to compare two different CPET bas...
Background
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, matches and soccer-specific training were suspended for several weeks, matches after resumption were congested, and substitutions per team and game increased from three to five.
Objective
The aim of this review was to examine possible differences in physical match performance and injuries between before and...
Purpose:
: Biological maturity is an important aspect in the context of talent identification and development processes within elite youth soccer players. The aim of this study was to investigate the accuracy of soccer coaches (SC) as well as sport science and medicine staff (SSMS) to predict the skeletal age of high-level youth soccer players. We...
The tactical formation has been shown to influence the match performance of professional soccer players. This study aimed to examine the effects of in-game changes in tactical formation on match performance and to analyze coach-specific differences. We investigated three consecutive seasons of an elite team in the German Bundesliga which were manag...
Objectives
This study aimed to investigate age-related injury incidence, severity, and burden over a 3-year period in U14 to U19 elite male soccer players in a German youth academy.
Design
Descriptive epidemiology study.
Methods
Time-loss injuries of 166 unique players were prospectively documented and injury incidence, severity, and burden were...
The aim of the study was to examine the impact of the positional role and the individuality on the technical match performance in professional soccer players. From official match data of the Bundesliga season 2018/19, technical performance [short (<10 m)/medium (10–30 m)/long (>30 m) passes, dribblings, ball possessions] of all players who played d...
The number of investigations that specifically address the influence of formation on soccer performance has increased in recent years. Since there is no overview that summarizes these effects, this systematic review aims to synthesize the available literature on the effects of tactical formation on physical and technical match performance. Accordin...
Wachstum und biologische Reifung sind Aspekte, die die Prozesse der Talentidentifikation, -selektion und -entwicklung entscheidend beeinflussen. In einer Vielzahl von Sportarten stehen Wachstum und biologischer Reifestatus jugendlicher Athleten im Zusammenhang mit Körpergröße, -gewicht, -zusammensetzung und körperlicher Leistungsfähigkeit. Der vorl...
Introduction
Soccer is a complex game in which athletes perform in a dynamic 360°-environment. The results of numerous studies highlight the importance of perceptual-cognitive functions for soccer performance. Moreover, in recent years, the idea of improving sports performance through systematic perceptual-cognitive training has been increasingly i...
Purpose: Replicating the studies of Gibson et al. (2017) and Brownstein et al. (2018) to assess performance and physiological and perceived variables during a repeated-sprint protocol (RSP) with standardized versus self-selected recovery in youth soccer players.
Methods: Nineteen male soccer players (age: 13.1±1.3 years) completed two separate RSPs...
Aim:
This study aimed to assess the value of monitoring fitness in elite youth soccer players (U15 to U19 age groups) by analyzing the concomitant changes in heart rate at submaximal intensity (HR12km/h) and the velocity at a lactate concentration of 4 mmol/l (v4mmol/l).
Methods:
Players were tested by means of an incremental treadmill test on t...
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether tactical formation affects the physical and technical match performance of professional soccer players in the first German Bundesliga. From official match data of the Bundesliga season 2018/19, physical (total distance, high-intensity distance, sprinting distance, accelerations, maximum velocity)...
The analysis of tracking data in tactical game analysis is a topic of rising interest, as more detailed insights into performance structure in soccer can be obtained compared to traditional (e.g. notational) analyzes. Compared to the variety and detailed analyzes of offensive play, the number of studies analyzing the defensive play is low. However,...
Introduction
An important requirement for soccer players is the accurate and rapid processing of dynamic and complex visual scenes. Therefore, in high-level youth soccer the players’ perceptual-cognitive skills are highly relevant from a scientific and practical point of view. The aim of the present study was to investigate differences in perceptua...
With the growing availability of position data in sports, spatiotemporal analysis in soccer is a topic of rising interest. The aim of this study is to validate a performance indicator, namely D-Def, measuring passing effectiveness. D-Def calculates the change of the teams’ centroid, centroids of formation lines (e.g., defensive line), teams’ surfac...
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a 40-min nap opportunity (N40) on performance during, markers of muscle damage and inflammation, and the perception of fatigue and recovery, in response to a 5-m shuttle run test (5msrt). Fifteen male amateur athletes performed the 5msrt under two conditions: N40 and no-nap condition (NN). Bloo...
The purpose of this study was to examine to what extent the physical match performance of professional soccer players is both position and player specific. First, official match data from the 2019/20 German Bundesliga season was used to search for players that met the inclusion criteria of playing a minimum of four entire matches in at least two di...
The aim of this study was to examine possible differences in physical match performance and the injury occurrence before and after the COVID-19 induced interruption of the 2019/2020 season of the German Bundesliga. Due to the interruption, matches and soccer-specific training were suspended for nine weeks, matches after the resumption of play occur...
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of physical and perceptual-cognitive factors with agility performance in amateur soccer players. Fifteen male amateur soccer players (age, 24.5 ± 1.9 years) completed a linear-sprint test with splits at 5 m, 10 m, and 30 m, a change-of-direction test of 12 m with 2 pre-planned directional c...
The aim of this study was to investigate position-specific endurance performance of soccer players. 136 professional players competing in the 1st and 2nd division in Germany were divided into the positional groups goalkeepers (GK), central defenders (CD), wingers (WI), central midfielders (CM), and forwards (FW). All players performed an incrementa...
Altmann, S, Neumann, R, Ringhof, S, Rumpf, MC, and Woll, A. Soccer-specific agility: reliability of a newly developed test and correlates of rerformance. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000–000, 2020—The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability of a newly developed soccer-specific agility test and to determine the correlation of different pe...
Purpose:
To assess the value of monitoring changes in fitness in professional soccer players, using changes in heart rate at submaximal intensity (HR12km/h) over the velocity at a lactate concentration of 4 mmol/L (v4mmol/L). The authors reexamined (1) a range of threshold magnitudes, which may improve detecting substantial individual changes and...
Background
Recommendations for assessing motor performance in individuals with dementia (IWD) are rare, and most existing assessment tools previously applied in IWD were initially developed for healthy older adults. However, IWD and their healthy counterparts differ in motor and cognitive capabilities, which needs to be considered when designing st...
Introduction
Speed is an important prerequisite in soccer. Therefore, a large number of tests have been developed aiming to investigate several speed skills relevant to soccer. This systematic review aimed to examine the validity and reliability of speed tests used in adult soccer players.
Methods
A systematic search was performed according to the...
Purpose: To measure the initial level and development of physical fitness (PF) in pupils from grade 4 to grade 7 in sport schools with respect to the discipline, training volume and training years. Methods: A total of 1590 (1074 female, 516 male) pupils from sport schools in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) were tested in grade 4 and re-tested in g...
Slackline training has been shown to improve balance and neuromuscular performance. However, recent studies suggested that balance is task-specific, implying that transferability of balance skills is limited and might depend on the similarity of the tasks. This study therefore investigated if short-term slackline training could improve performance...
Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of timing lights (TL) at different heights for measuring velocities during sprinting. Methods: Two sets of single beam TL were used to determine velocities reached in a flying 20-m sprint in 15 healthy and physically active male participants. In TL64, all TL were set up at a height...
Purpose:
To investigate if error correction processing (ECP) algorithms in timing lights are able to eliminate or to reduce measurement errors (ME) and false signals due to swinging arms or legs.
Methods:
First, a dummy was used to check if ECP generally works. Second, 15 male sports students performed sprints over 5 m and 10 m. Timing lights wi...
Supplementary Tables - Altmann et al., 2018 Relationships between performance test and match-related physical performance parameters.
Supplementary Table 1. Mean values (± SD) of the performance test and match-related physical performance parameters for all seasons.
Supplementary Table 2. Pearson correlations (r) between performance test and mat...
Background.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between performance test parameters and match-related physical performance in professional soccer players.
Methods.
To determine physical capacity, 28 male soccer players underwent several performance tests at the start of the seasons 2013/2014, 2014/2015, and 2015/2016. The f...
Objective: This study aimed to compare different methods to determine energy expenditure (EE) on incline walking.
Approach: The methods tested were a conventional triaxial accelerometer (GT3X), a versatile system (SenseWear), both utilizing single regression models, and a device equipped with a triaxial accelerometer and an air pressure sensor (m...
The purpose of this study was to quantify the effect of different timing light heights on sprint time and the validity of measurement. Two single beam timing gate systems were used to measure 30-m sprint time (splits at 5 m and 10 m) in 15 healthy and physically active male subjects. System 1 was set up at a height of 0.64 m, system 2 at 0.25 m (in...
The purpose of this study was to quantify the effect of different starting distances on 5-m sprint time and the accuracy of the initial timing gate. A single beam timing gate system (1 m high) was used to measure 5-m sprint time in 13 male sports students. Each subject performed three valid trials for three starting distances: 0.3, 0.5, and 1.0 m f...