State Transition Modeling in Ultimate Frisbee: Adaptation of a Promising Method for Performance Analysis in Invasion Sports

Abstract

Although the body of literature in sport science is growing rapidly, certain sports have yet to benefit from this increased interest by the scientific community. One such sport is Ultimate Frisbee, officially known as Ultimate. Thus, the goal of this study was to describe the nature of the sport by identifying differences between winning and losing teams in elite-level competition. To do so, a customized observational system and a state transition model were developed and applied to 14 games from the 2017 American Ultimate Disc League season. The results reveal that, on average, 262.2 passes were completed by a team per game and 5.5 passes per possession. More than two-thirds of these passes were played from the mid zone (39.4 ± 6.57%) and the rear zone (35.2 ± 5.09%), nearest the team’s own end zone. Winning and losing teams do not differ in these general patterns, but winning teams played significantly fewer backward passes from the front zone to the mid zone, nearest the opponent’s end zone than losing teams (mean difference of −4.73%, t(13) = −4.980, p < 0.001, d = −1.16). Furthermore, losing teams scored fewer points when they started on defense, called breakpoints (mean difference of −5.57, t(13) = −6.365, p < 0.001, d = 2.30), and committed significantly more turnovers per game (mean difference of 5.64, t(13) = 5.85, p < 0.001, d = −1.18). Overall, this study provides the first empirical description of Ultimate and identifies relevant performance indicators to discriminate between winning and losing teams. We hope this article sheds light on the unique, but so far overlooked sport of Ultimate, and offers performance analysts the basis for future studies using state transition modeling in Ultimate as well as other invasion sports.

Teamwork: A Systematic Review of Implications From Psychosocial Constructs for Research and Practice in the Performance of Ultimate Frisbee Games

“…Thus, this SR aims to provide psychological insights into the nature of the sport UF. We believe this study will generate further interest in UF within the sports science community, as this sport has been neglected so far (Lam et al, 2021). Furthermore, the identification and analysis of UF characteristics and environment can be used to enhance players/students and team's performance.…”

Efecto de un programa de entrenamiento pliométrico sobre la capacidad de salto en una muestra de juga-dores colombianos de ultimate Frisbee (18-35 años) (Effect of a plyometric training program on jumping ability in a sample of Colombian ultimate Frisbee play-ers (18-35 years old))

“…Por ello, es necesario mencionar que cada una de estas acciones que se desarrollan en el ultimate se dan con la predominancia de la vía glucolítica (Krustrup & Mohr, 2015;Kajiki et al, 2021) gracias a que el entrenamiento de la fuerza es compatible con la resistencia, mejorando así la flexibilidad (Prieto González, Sagat, Ben Brahim & Sedlacek, 2020) y a su vez, desencadena efectos sobre la composición corporal (Castro, Galvez, Guzman & Garcia, 2019). Sin embargo, aunque la evolución de la ciencia deportiva ha ido incrementándose rápidamente, ciertos deportes como el ultimate aún no se han beneficiado del aporte investigativo (Kajiki, Yamashita, Inada & Matsumoto, 2021;Lam, Kolbinger, Lames & Guedes, 2021). Por esta razón, la comprensión de los efectos de un programa pliométrico aplicado a jugadores de ultimate en diversos grupos etarios es fundamental para favorecer estrategias efectivas y coherentes para su proceso de preparación, buscando con ello, mejorar el rendimiento (Scanlan, Dascombe, Reaburn & Dalbo, 2012;Póvoas et al, 2014), así como prevenir lesiones (Reynolds & Halsmer, 2006;Akinbola, Logerstedt, Hunter & Snyder, 2015).…”

Dispositional Orientations in Competitive Ultimate Frisbee Athletes

“…Ultimate Frisbee (UF) is a fast paced, non-contact, mixed team sport played with a flying disc or frisbee (Griggs, 2011;Lam et al, 2021). The official field measures are 64 meters by 37.57 meters with 22.86 meters end zones, and an official match has a duration of 48 minutes, with two 24-minute halves (Caporali, 1988).…”