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Background: In recent years, there has been a large expansion in literature pertaining to the game of Australian football (AF). Furthermore, there have been a number of rule changes that are likely to have changed the demands of the game. Based on these advances and changes, it seemed important to conduct a review assessing the scientific literature surrounding the sport.Objective: The review evaluates the match demands of AF, the qualities required for success, and the impact training and competition have on adaptation, injury and fatigue.Methods: A systematic search of PubMed, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science and Scopus for AF literature was conducted; studies investigating match demands, physical qualities, training practices and injury were included. Weighted means and standard deviations were calculated for match demands and physical and anthropometric profiles across playing standards.Results: A total of 1830 articles were retrieved in the initial search, with 888 removed as duplicates, 626 removed for being non-relevant and a further 152 removed for being AF papers but not relevant to the review. As such, 164 AF papers were included in the review. Due to the intermittent high-intensity nature of match-play, players need a wide range of physical and technical qualities to excel, with speed, aerobic fitness, reactive agility and well-developed lean mass being central to success. Training for AF at the elite level is associated with high workloads, with players engaging in numerous training modalities; even altitude and heat training camps have been utilised by Australian Football League (AFL) teams to further augment fitness improvements. While high chronic workloads can be tolerated and are needed for improving physical qualities, careful planning and monitoring of internal and external workloads is required to minimise sharp spikes in load that are associated with injury.Conclusions: There is a complex interaction between numerous contextual factors that influence the match demands that are discussed in this review. Whilst players must have the physical capacities to cope with the intense physical demands of AF matches, the successful execution of technical skills during match-play is central to success. To develop these skills and attributes, specific and carefully planned and monitored training must be performed over a number of years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Australian football is a popular sport in Australia, at both the community and elite levels. It is a high-speed contact sport with a higher incidence of medically treated injuries when compared with most other organized sports. Hamstring injuries, ligament injuries to the knee or ankle, hip/groin injuries and tendinopathies are particularly common and often result in considerable time lost from sport. Consequently, the prevention of lower limb injuries is a priority for both community and elite Australian football organizations. There is considerable literature available on exercise programmes aimed at reducing lower limb injuries in Australian football and other running-related sports. The quality and outcomes of these studies have varied considerably, but indicate that exercise protocols may be an effective means of preventing lower limb injuries. Despite this, there has been limited high-quality and systematic evaluation of these data. Objective: The aim of this literature review is to systematically evaluate the evidence about the benefits of lower limb injury prevention exercise protocols aimed at reducing the most common severe lower limb injuries in Australian football. Methods: The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, the Cochrane Bone Joint and Muscle Trauma Group Specialized Register, MEDLINE and other electronic databases were searched, from January 1990 to December 2010. Papers reporting the results of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), quasi-RCTs, cohort and case-control studies were extracted. Primary outcomes were injury reduction or risk factor identification and/or modification. Secondary outcomes were adherence to any trialled interventions, injury severity and adverse effects such as secondary injuries and muscle soreness. The methodological quality of extracted manuscripts was assessed and results were collated. Results: Forty-seven papers were identified and reviewed of which 18 related to hamstring injury, eight related to knee or ankle ligament injury, five related to tendon injury and four were hip or groin injury related. Another 12 papers targeted general lower limb injuries. Most ( n = 27 [57 %]) were observational studies, investigating injury risk factors. Twenty reported the results of intervention trials. Of these, 15 were efficacy trials reporting the effects of an intervention in reducing injury rates, four were biomechanical interventions in which the impact of the intervention on a known injury risk factor was assessed and one reported changes in injury risk factors as well as injury rates. The strength of the evidence base for exercise programmes for lower limb injury prevention was found to be limited, primarily due to the research methods employed, low adherence to interventions by the study participants and a lack of statistical power. Limited evidence obtained from a small number of RCTs suggests that balance and control exercises might be efficacious in preventing ankle ligament injuries and a programme involving a combination of balance and control exercises, eccentric hamstring, plyometrics and strength exercises could be efficacious in preventing all lower limb injuries. Conclusions: Overall, the evidence for exercise programmes as an efficacious lower limb injury prevention strategy is predominantly restricted to studies addressing injury aetiology and mechanisms. The findings of this review highlight the need to develop and test interventions in well designed population-based trials with an emphasis on promoting intervention uptake and adherence and, hence, intervention effectiveness. The results of this review can inform the development of the components of a future lower limb injury prevention exercise protocol for community-level Australian football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objective: Hypoxic training techniques are increasingly used by athletes in an attempt to improve performance in normoxic environments. The 'live low-train high (LLTH)' model of hypoxic training may be of particular interest to athletes because LLTH protocols generally involve shorter hypoxic exposures (approximately two to five sessions per week of <3 h) than other traditional hypoxic training techniques (e.g. live high-train high or live high-train low). However, the methods employed in LLTH studies to date vary greatly with respect to exposure times, training intensities, training modalities, degrees of hypoxia and performance outcomes assessed. Whilst recent reviews provide some insight into how LLTH may be applied to enhance performance, little attention has been given to how training intensity/modality may specifically influence subsequent performance in normoxia. Therefore, this systematic review aims to evaluate the normoxic performance outcomes of the available LLTH literature, with a particular focus on training intensity and modality. Data Sources and Study Selection: A systematic search was conducted to capture all LLTH studies with a matched normoxic (control) training group and the assessment of performance under normoxic conditions. Studies were excluded if no training was completed during the hypoxic exposures, or if these exposures exceeded 3 h per day. Four electronic databases were searched (PubMed, SPORTDiscus™, EMBASE and Web of Science) during August 2013, and these searches were supplemented by additional manual searches until December 2013. Results: After the electronic and manual searches, 40 papers were deemed to meet the inclusion criteria, representing 31 separate studies. Within these 31 studies, four types of LLTH were identified: (1) continuous low-intensity training in hypoxia (CHT, n = 16), (2) interval hypoxic training (IHT, n = 4), (3) repeated sprint training in hypoxia (RSH, n = 3) and (4) resistance training in hypoxia (RTH, n = 4). Four studies also used a combination of CHT and IHT. The majority of studies reported no difference in normoxic performance between the hypoxic and normoxic training groups ( n = 19), while nine reported greater improvements in the hypoxic group and three reported poorer outcomes compared with the control group. Selection of training intensity (including matching relative or absolute intensity between normoxic and hypoxic groups) was identified as a key factor in mediating the subsequent normoxic performance outcomes. Five studies included some form of normoxic training for the hypoxic group and 14 studies assessed performance outcomes not specific to the training intensity/modality completed during the training intervention. Conclusion: Four modes of LLTH are identified in the current literature (CHT, IHT, RSH and RTH), with training mode and intensity appearing to be key factors in mediating subsequent performance responses in normoxia. Improvements in normoxic performance appear most likely following high-intensity, short-term and intermittent training (e.g. IHT, RSH). LLTH programmes should carefully apply the principles of training and testing specificity and include some high-intensity training in normoxia. For RTH, it is unclear whether the associated adaptations are greater than those of traditional (maximal) resistance training programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]