Activity Profile of High-Level Australian Lacrosse Players

Abstract

Despite lacrosse being one of the fastest growing team sports in the world, there is a paucity of information detailing the activity profile of high-level players. Microtechnology systems (global positioning systems and accelerometers) provide the opportunity to obtain detailed information on the activity profile in lacrosse. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the activity profile of lacrosse match-play using microtechnology. Activity profile variables assessed relative to minutes of playing time included relative distance (meter per minute), distance spent standing (0-0.1 m·min), walking (0.2-1.7 m·min), jogging (1.8-3.2 m·min), running (3.3-5.6 m·min), sprinting (≥5.7 m·min), number of high, moderate, low accelerations and decelerations, and player load (PL per minute), calculated as the square root of the sum of the squared instantaneous rate of change in acceleration in 3 vectors (medio-lateral, anterior-posterior, and vertical). Activity was recorded from 14 lacrosse players over 4 matches during a national tournament. Players were separated into positions of attack, midfield, or defense. Differences (effect size [ES] ± 90% confidence interval) between positions and periods of play were considered likely positive when there was ≥75% likelihood of the difference exceeding an ES threshold of 0.2. Midfielders had likely covered higher (mean ± SD) meters per minute (100 ± 11) compared with attackers (87 ± 14; ES = 0.89 ± 1.04) and defenders (79 ± 14; ES = 1.54 ± 0.94) and more moderate and high accelerations and decelerations. Almost all variables across positions were reduced in quarter 4 compared with quarter 1. Coaches should accommodate for positional differences when preparing lacrosse players for competition.

Training Load Monitoring in Team Sports: A Novel Framework Separating Physiological and Biomechanical Load-Adaptation Pathways

“…The premise of these summative measures is that an estimate of the external biomechanical load can be provided through accumulating the rates of acceleration. Recent studies have used PlayerLoad TM values to monitor training load in season and between matches (34,35) and some studies determined typical profiles in various team sports (34,(36)(37)(38)(39). Scientists have attempted to relate this to the physiological load (external or internal measures), similar to what is commonly done in physical activity monitoring (as reviewed in (40,41)).…”

Accelerometry as a method for external workload monitoring in invasion team sports. A systematic review

“…For the comparison between sports disciplines, the variable PL TM is normalized by total session time [min]. Studies that included time normalized PL TM reported different workloads across sports as soccer 10.18±2.12 [40] or 10.6-13.2±1.5-2.5 [43], netball 9.4-10.6±2.4-3.6 [70], MMA 15.37±1.71 [166], handball 9.18-9.76±0.6-1.4 [69], rugby union 7.6±0.6 [104], hockey 13.8-12.5±1.6-1.0 [44], lacrosse 7.6-9.9±1.5-2.7 [71], Australian football 15.1-16.3±0.9-1.4 [105] and rugby 7.2-10.4±0.8-2.0 [100]. These data confirm that each sport has specific demands regarding external workload, being the ranges as a consequence of the different playing positions.…”

When Is a Sprint a Sprint? A Review of the Analysis of Team-Sport Athlete Activity Profile

“…While the decision to include five movement categories comprising standing, walking, jogging, running, and sprinting, appear to have been arbitrarily determined, this is a novel idea compared to the traditional analysis of athlete velocity. This approach was utilized to profile the activity of national level lacrosse (Polley et al, 2015) and youth female field hockey (Vescovi, 2014) athletes. However, the 1 Hz GPS units used have a very large (77.2%) CV when measuring short sprint efforts (Jennings et al, 2010).…”