Comment on: “The Use of Microtechnology to Quantify the Peak Match Demands of the Football Codes: A Systematic Review”

Authors’ Reply to Carling et al: Comment on: “The Use of Microtechnology to Quantify the Peak Match Demands of the Football Codes: A Systematic Review”

“…Further interesting points are raised by Carling et al [1] regarding the alignment of the peak demands with the technical-tactical demands, which we provided as a future research direction based upon timestamping microtechnology and video analysis data. Whilst we acknowledge that some areas of our review could have been expanded further we were constrained by the journal word count and tried to summarise areas for future research.…”

“…Secondly, the application and use of the peak demands or 'worst case scenario' of match-play in practice was questioned [1]. Although Carling and colleagues [1] propose some interesting points for discussion within the area, unfortunately we were unable to include information on the questions posed as this research has not yet been undertaken.…”

“…Secondly, the application and use of the peak demands or 'worst case scenario' of match-play in practice was questioned [1]. Although Carling and colleagues [1] propose some interesting points for discussion within the area, unfortunately we were unable to include information on the questions posed as this research has not yet been undertaken. We state in the discussion section that further information is required, such as additional concurrent physical (e.g., collisions in the rugby codes) and technical-tactical demands (e.g., during what passages/type of play are these demands occurring) to aid prescribing more code-specific drills.…”

“…Firstly, Carling and colleagues [1] expressed their concerns that the restriction of the review [2] to microtechnology derived data omitted several studies in soccer (e.g., [3][4][5][6][7]). These studies were not included in our systematic review due to their use of optical tracking techniques as opposed to microtechnology devices, thus they did not meet the eligibility criteria of the review and were removed at the screening stage (see Figure 1 in [2]).…”

“…Additionally, the ability to provide more specific prescription recommendations in our systematic review is limited by the current lack of research on the dose-response of fatigue and training adaptations to peak demands specific training. Carling et al [1] also highlight the match-to-match variability of the peak high speed running activity in soccer [12], questioning the impact on prescription of training. We do acknowledge that variability does naturally exist and should be considered.…”