Revista de medicina deportiva y estudios de dopaje

Heart Rate Responses during Small-Sided Soccer Games

Abstract

Evaggelos Manolopoulos, Vasilios I. Kalapotharakos, George Ziogas, Michalis Mitrotasios, Konstantinos S. Spaneas and Savvas P. Tokmakidis

The purpose of the present study was to examine the heart rate responses during small-sided games with different number of players. Sixteen professional soccer players were evaluated for body fat (%) using the skin fold thickness at three sites, VO2 max and running velocity at the lactate threshold using an incremental treadmill protocol. %HRmax was measured during four-, five-, six-, seven-, and eight-a side soccer games. The four-a-side game showed significantly (p<0.05) higher %HRmax in comparison to the other small-sided games. On the other hand, the %HRmax of the eight-a-side game was significantly lower (p<0.05) than three-, four-, five-, six-, and seven-a-side game. The intensity of small-sided games decreases as the number of players increase. The monitoring of heart rate during small-sided games combined with laboratory VO2 max tests is a possible way to define target training intensity zones.