1. Physical preparation of the Australian national male field hockey team exceeded the movement demands of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games tournament.
- Author
-
Goods PS, Scott BR, Appleby B, Jennings D, Peeling P, and Galna B
- Subjects
- Humans, Male, Tokyo, Australia, Acceleration, Geographic Information Systems, Hockey, Athletic Performance
- Abstract
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.- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF