Assessment methods to monitoring training load and training response in american football: a scoping review

Abstract

Control and monitor the training load program and training responses in athletes is important to avoid negative consequences of high training loads, such as injuries, illness and performance decay. Specifically in American football teams, there is a large number of athletes to monitor and depending on the sports team, they may or may not have easy access to a certain type of instrument. A reference material about instruments already used to monitor training load and training responses in American football athletes is interesting. This could help coaches and researchers to choose better instruments to use in their clinical practice or to cover some gap in the literature, advancing the state of the art. In this sense, the objective of this scope review is to indicate which tools have already been used to monitor training response and training load, thus indicating the limitations and gaps that researchers can advance. This study is a scoping review of the literature to be performed based on the stages proposed by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) for Scoping Reviews. The search for studies will be carried out in the following databases: Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE [via: PubMed]), Web of Science, Excerpta Medica DataBase (EMBASE), Scopus, and SPORTDiscus. For Scopus and Embase we used the “title, abstract, keywords” filter. For the Web of Science we used the “topic” (title, abstract, author keywords, and Keywords Plus) filter. For SPORTDiscus we selected only "Academic Journals". The gray literature will be consulted using Google Scholar, Research Square, and MedRxiv. The search strategy will be developed from a combination of controlled descriptors and/or keywords related to the topic, without applying restrictions related to publication periods or language. The identified studies will be imported to EndNote Basic to remove the duplicates, and then imported into the Rayyan software. Studies without duplicates will then be evaluated and selected based on eligibility criteria by groups of two independent and blinded reviewers by reading the title and abstract of the studies (phase 1), followed by reading the full text of the selected studies in phase 1 (phase 2). Any disagreements in the process of study selection will be solved by a third reviewer. The lists of references cited by selected studies in phase 2 will be analyzed (hand search) to identify other eligible studies to be included in this review. The data of selected studies will be analyzed and collected by two independent and blinded reviewers, by filling out a characterization table in Microsoft Word software, which contains: characteristics of the study, characteristics of individuals, characteristics of instruments. At the end of this process, a cross-checking of all information retrieved from the studies will be carried out. The divergences will be resolved by a third reviewer.