Energetic and Metabolic Power Demands of National Rugby League Match-Play

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to apply a time-motion model to estimate and describe the energy expenditure and metabolic power demands of playing positions in elite rugby league match-play, utilizing Global Positioning System (GPS) devices. 18 elite rugby league players participated in this study. Players' positional groups included: outside backs (n=59 files, n=4 players), adjustables (n=74 files, n=4 players), wide-running (n=104 files, n=7 players) and hit-up forwards (n=36 files, n=3 players). Outside backs expended the greatest total energy (40.1±5.0 kJ·kg(-1)) per match, equivalent to 8.1%, 26.6% and 61.9% greater energy than adjustables, wide-running and hit-up forwards, respectively. Adjustables attained an anaerobic index 7.3% higher than wide-running forwards, 19.7% higher than hit-up forwards (p=0.001) and 43.2% higher than outside backs (p<0.001). Wide-running forwards achieved an anaerobic index (0.34±0.04) 11% and 32.8% higher than hit-up forwards (p=0.001) and outside backs (p<0.001), respectively. Mean power of adjustables (10.0±0.9 W·kg(-1)) was significantly higher than all other groups (outside backs: 28.8%, 7.8±1.0; hit-up: 12.4%, 8.9±0.6; and wide-running: 8.7%, 9.2±0.7 forwards) (p<0.001). Energetics indices indicated differing metabolic demands for all positional groups, suggesting position-specific conditioning drills are required to replicate the energetic demands of match-play.

High-Intensity Acceleration and Deceleration Demands in Elite Team Sports Competitive Match Play: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

“…The characteristics of the 19 included studies are summarised in Table 3. One study investigated American Football [42], two Australian Football [43, 44], one hockey [18], four rugby league [29, 45–47], three rugby sevens [36, 48, 49], two rugby union [41, 50] and six soccer [10, 16, 17, 19, 20, 51]. Across all seven team sports investigated, the total sample included 469 players with a mean age ranging from 18 to 29 years.…”

“…During the data extraction process, studies that used the same data across multiple studies were excluded, with only the earliest publication date used. This resulted in the exclusion of a further five [14, 29–32] studies (Table 2, exclusion criteria: #10). Data extracted were organised according to the sample studied (sport, position, age, body mass, stature), competition details (type, year, number of matches, data files) and classification of ‘eliteness’ (semi-elite, competitive elite, successful elite, world-class elite).…”

The Demands of Professional Rugby League Match-Play: a Meta-analysis

“…Eight studies did not provide a complete description of subject characteristics [12, 14, 18, 19, 37, 43, 45, 49]. Ten studies reported the actual probability values [9, 12, 17, 18, 20, 34, 48–51], whereas 12 studies reported effect sizes [10, 11, 14, 16, 19, 35, 36, 42, 43, 45–47].…”

“…Eighteen studies (60%) reported on playing time [8–11, 14–20, 33, 34, 43, 45, 47, 50, 51]. Results of the meta-analysis are presented in Fig.…”

“…Total distance was the most reported variable with 21 of the 30 (70%) studies reporting this variable [8, 10–15, 18–20, 33, 34, 37, 38, 42, 43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 51]. Results of the meta-analysis are presented in Fig.…”