Monitoring workload is critical for elite training and competition, as well as preventing potential sports injuries. The assessment of external load in team sports has been provided with new technologies that help coaches to individualize training and optimize their team’s playing system. In this study we characterized the physical demands of an elite handball team during an entire sports season. Novel data are reported for each playing position of this highly strenuous body-contact team sport. Sixteen world top players (5 wings, 2 centre backs, 6 backs, 3 line players) were equipped with a local positioning system (WIMU PRO) during fourteen official Spanish first league matches. Playing time, total distance covered at different running speeds, and acceleration variables were monitored. During a handball match, wings cover the greater distance by high-speed running (> 5.0 m·s
-1
): 410.3 ± 193.2 m, and by sprint (> 6.7 m·s
-1
): 98.0 ± 75.4 m. Centre backs perform the following playing position that supports the highest speed intensities during the matches: high-speed running: 243.2 ± 130.2 m; sprint: 62.0 ± 54.2 m. Centre backs also register the largest number of high-intensity decelerations (n = 142.7 ± 59.5) compared to wings (n = 112.9 ± 56.0), backs (n = 105.2 ± 49.2) and line players: 99.6 ± 28.9). This study provides helpful information for professional coaches and their technical staff to optimize training load and individualize the physical demands of their elite male handball players depending on each playing position.
The aim of this research was to analyse the capacity of a home-based training programme to preserve aerobic capacity and jumping performance in top-level handball players during the COVID-19 lockdown. Eleven top-level male handball players from the same team participated in the study. A submaximal shuttle run test and a counter-movement jump test were used to measure the players’ aerobic fitness and lower limb explosive strength, respectively. A 9-week home-based training programme was followed during lockdown. Pre-test measurements were assessed before the pandemic on 29 January 2020 and ended on 18 May 2020. Moderate significant mean heart rate increases were found in the late stages of the submaximal shuttle run test after the lockdown (stage 5, 8.6%, P = 0.015; ES = 0.873; stage 6, 7.7%, P = 0.020; ES = 0.886; stage 7, 6.4%, P = 0.019; ES = 0.827). Moderate significant blood lactate increases were observed immediately after the submaximal shuttle run test following the lockdown (30.1%, P = 0.016; ES = 0.670). In contrast, no changes were found in jump performance. A structured home-based training programme during the COVID-19 lockdown preserved lower limb explosive strength but was an insufficient stimulus to maintain aerobic capacity in top-level handball players.
Despite approval of the use of electronic performance-tracking systems (EPTSs) during competition by the International Football Association Board, other team-sport organizations and leagues have banned their use due to "safety concerns," with no evidence to support this assertion. The aim of the current brief report was to provide empirical evidence to support the widespread use of EPTSs across all sports by examining safety issues concerning their use in a multi-team-sport club. Five outdoor football teams (1st team, 2nd team, under 19 [U-19], under 18 [U-18], and 1st team female) and 3 indoor-sport (basketball, futsal, and handball) teams were monitored, accounting for a total of 63,734 h of training and 12,748 h of game time. A questionnaire was sent to all fitness coaches involved, and the clinical history was reviewed for every medical issue reported. Six minor chest contusions were recorded in female football goalkeepers wearing the frontal chest strap (3.17 episodes per 1000 training h). During training, 3 episodes of minor skin abrasion affecting the thoracic area due to wearing vests too tight were recorded in the U-19 football team (0.21 per 1000 h) and 2 episodes in U-18 (0.39 per 1000 h). It must be noted that none of these episodes resulted in lost days of training or games, and none required medical assistance. In conclusion, empirical evidence confirms that EPTSs are safe to use across team sports.
The aim of this study was to quantify longitudinal changes in the games of the 6 Men’s European Handball Championship (EHC) celebrated between 2012 and 2022. A total of 563 match observations were examined. Specifically, the study contained the Number of Goals, Number of Attacks, Number of Shots, Number of Saves, Offensive Efficacy (Number of Goals/Number of Attacks × 100) and Defensive Efficacy (100 − Offensive Efficacy of the Opponent). Data were examined using the Kruskal–Wallis test and linear regression analysis. Results suggest that the number of goals remained relatively constant from 2012 to 2022. However, the number of attacks, shots, saves and defensive efficacy decreased, while offensive efficacy increased. These findings can contribute to a better understanding of how handball is evolving from a structural or tactical viewpoint.
In handball, the way the team organizes itself in defense can greatly impact the player’s activity and displacement during the play, therefore impacting the match demands. This paper aims (1) to develop an automatic tool to detect and classify the defensive organization of the team based on the local positioning system data and check its classification quality, and (2) to quantify the match demands per defensive organization, i.e., defining a somehow cost of specific defensive organizations. For this study, LPS positional data (X and Y location) of players from a team in the Spanish League were analyzed during 25 games. The algorithm quantified the physical demands of the game (distance stand, walk, jog, run and sprint) broken down by player role and by specific defensive organizations, which were automatically detected from the raw data. Results show that the different attacking and defending phases of a game can be automatically detected with high accuracy, the defensive organization can be classified between 1–5, 0–6, 2–4, and 3–3. Interestingly, due to the highly adaptive nature of handball, differences were found between what was the intended defensive organization at a start of a phase and the actual organization that can be observed during the full defensive phase, which consequently impacts the physical demands of the game. From there, quantifying for each player role the cost of each specific defensive organization is the first step into optimizing the use of the players in the team and their recovery time, but also at the team level, it allows to balance the cost (i.e., physical demand) and the benefit (i.e., the outcome of the defensive phase) of each type of defensive organization.
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