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Physical preparation of the Australian national male field hockey team exceeded the movement demands of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games tournament
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Physical preparation of the Australian national male field hockey team exceeded the movement demands of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games tournament

Paul SR Goods, Brendan R Scott, Brendyn Appleby, Denise Jennings, Peter Peeling and Brook Galna
Journal of sports sciences, Vol.41(6), pp.512-518
2023
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Published1.36 MBDownloadView
CC BY-NC-ND V4.0 Open Access

Abstract

athletes conditioning physical fitness Sports time-motion
This investigation explored differences in the pre-tournament preparation period relative to the movement demands of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games for the Australian male field-hockey team. Movement data was collected over 7 months prior to and during the 13-day Olympic tournament. Duration, distance (total; >80% individual peak velocity; >5 m.s −1 ), high-speed decelerations (>3.5 m.s −2 ), and total accelerations and decelerations (>2.5 m.s −2 ) were measured during each running-based session. A 13-day moving sum was calculated for each variable and compared to a player-specific "worst-case scenario" (WCS) for intra-tournament total movement demands. Summed 13-day movement demands exceeded the WCS for 6-58% of the preparation period across variables, for the entire squad. During the tournament, midfielders covered significantly greater sprint distance than Defenders (+84%,p = 0.020), with no other positional differences found. Greater variation in tournament movement demands was observed between players for accelerations, decelerations, and high-speed distance (CV = 19-46%) compared to duration and distance (CV = 4-9%). In conclusion, physical preparation exposed athletes to movement demands which surpassed WCS. Additionally, gross measures of training volume (duration and distance) are more generalisable to a squad; however, additional metrics such as sprint distance and high-speed decelerations are needed to better define positional and individual movement demands, and therefore, should be monitored by practitioners.

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1 Clinical & Life Sciences
1.172 Sports Science
1.172.414 Training Optimization
Web Of Science research areas
Sport Sciences
ESI research areas
Clinical Medicine
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