The Relationship Between Coach and Player Training Load Perceptions in Professional Soccer

Abstract

The training load imposed and perceived by coaches and soccer players, respectively, was compared for three weeks of the basic preparatory period of a professional soccer team through session ratings of perceived exertion (S-RPE). Participants were 24 professional Brazilian soccer players (all males, age: 24.1 ± 3.4 years) and their coaches. Athletes responded to the scale of perceived exertion (scores from 0 to10) after the training, while the coaches completed the scale prior to the training session, based on prior planning. The t-test for independent samples was used to compare S-RPE responses, and the Pearson correlation test was used to examine possible correlations between the parameters analyzed. There were no statistical differences between perceptions of prescribed (coaches) and experienced (players) S-RPE, and moderate correlations were found between these parameters ( r = .60; p = .003). No statistically significant group differences were found in the perceived exertion during any of three types of training: physical, technical, or tactical. The results suggest that the S-RPE prescribed during the preseason period (by coaches) was not different from that perceived by professional soccer players.

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“…In view of researches described, there is a trend regardless of the modality, athletes and practitioners (physically active individuals, case of the present study) to make all training sessions moderate in relation to intensity in spite of what was planned by coaches, increasing the intensity of sessions planned to be low intensity and reducing intensity of high intensity planned sessions. The exception was found by Redkva et al (2016), which showed a moderate-strong correlation between coaches' prediction and professional soccer players performing. Contrary to the cited studies, present study and a study developed by Redkva et al (2016) may be related to level of conditioning and time of experience in the modalities.…”

“…The exception was found by Redkva et al (2016), which showed a moderate-strong correlation between coaches' prediction and professional soccer players performing. Contrary to the cited studies, present study and a study developed by Redkva et al (2016) may be related to level of conditioning and time of experience in the modalities. Since in the studies that demonstrated differences between coaches and practitioners, the subjects were amateur athletes , young athletes (Brink et al, 2014;Banners, 2017;Scantlebury et al, 2017a) or physically active individuals (nonathletes) in the present study.…”

“…between ITL predicted by coaches and performed by athletes in sports, such as soccer (Brink et al, 2014, Redkva et al, 2016, Scantlebury et al, 2017a, rugby (Scantlebury et al, 2017a), tennis (Maurphy et al, 2017, netball (Scantlebury et al, 2017a), endurance running and cross-coutry running (Banners, 2017) , but there is a gap in the literature about same research in relation to other modalities, especially in relation to collective gymnastic. Modalities usually offered in fitness club such as indoor-cycling, as well as in non-athletes, active individuals who practice certain physical activity with other objectives that are not competitive.…”

“…Brink et al (2014) found weakmoderate correlations between sRPE predicted by coaches and that performed by young soccer athletes, while Scantlebury et al (2017a) found similar results regarding to the correlation of sRPE predicted by coaches and performed by young athletes of hockey, netball, rugby and soccer. On the other hand, Redkva et al (2016) investigated the correlation between sRPE predicted by coaches and performed by professional soccer athletes in physical, technical and tactical training, which demonstrated a moderate-strong correlation between coaches' prediction and athletes performing, and found no difference in the sRPE between coaches and athletes in any of training models investigated.…”

“…Since in the studies that demonstrated differences between coaches and practitioners, the subjects were amateur athletes , young athletes (Brink et al, 2014;Banners, 2017;Scantlebury et al, 2017a) or physically active individuals (nonathletes) in the present study. Only Redkva et al (2016) study conducted research with professional athletes, which raises the hypothesis that level of experience in the modality, relationship levels between coaches and practitioners and physical conditioning level may interfere in the accuracy between planning and conducting training sessions. In fact, all cited studies present subjects experience in the modalities more than 12 months.…”