Time of Day Effects on Repeated Sprint Ability

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the effects of time-of-day on muscle power and associated electromyographic (EMG) activity level of 4 thigh muscles during a repeated pedalling sprint exercise. After a familiarization session, 12 male subjects were asked to perform the repeated sprint ability test during 2 experimental sessions (randomized order), which were set up either at 06:00 or 18:00 h. For each sprint, peak power output, percentage of peak power decrement and total work were calculated. EMG activity of vastus lateralis, rectus femoris, vastus medialis and biceps femoris muscles was recorded throughout the test and analyzed for each sprint. Total work and percentage of peak power decrement were higher in the evening than in the morning (p<0.01 and p<0.05, respectively). Likewise, peak power was significantly higher at 18:00 than 06:00 h during the first 3 sprints (p<0.01 for sprint 1 and p<0.05 for sprint 2 and 3). There was no time-of-day effect for EMG activity level. The neuromuscular efficiency decreased significantly over the repeated sprint ability test at the 2 times of testing (p<0.01). Despite diurnal fluctuation in muscular power and neuromuscular fatigue during the repeated sprint ability test, EMG activity of major thigh muscles was not time-of-day dependent.

Time of Day Effect on Soccer—Specific Field Tests in Tunisian Boy Players

“…Body temperature as a marker of circadian rhythms, shows a diurnal variation with higher values recorded at 17:00 h (Figure 1) the gains observed in our experimental population (around 0.68˚C) are in accordance with the amplitude (peak-to-trough variation) demonstrated on boys which showed an amplitude ranging from 0.5˚C to 1˚C (Melhim et al, 1993;Souissi et al, 2010;Zarrouk et al, 2012). The results of the present investigation, focused on the diurnal fluctuations of boy's footballers, showed that agility and dribbling fluctuate with time-of-day, with morning nadirs, evening highest values and an amplitude equal to 8% ± 6.7% and 4.5% ± 5.9%, respectively.…”

“…It would seem, therefore, that changes in some skills soccer performance are justified by changes in body temperature during the course of the day time. Similar findings were reported in swimming (Zarrouk et al, 2012), running (Chtourou et al, 2012b), tennis (Drust et al, 2005), football (Reilly et al, 2004a(Reilly et al, , 2004b, badminton . It can, thus, be concluded that there is a circadian rhythm in some specific skills performance in boy's footballer.…”

Is there a diurnal variation in repeated sprint ability on a non-motorised treadmill?

“…The presence of a daily variation in peak velocity in our study disagrees with previous research that reported no such differences (Hamouda et al, 2012;Souissi et al, 2008). Our findings regarding peak power are in agreement with previous research indicating significant diurnal variation in this variable (Aloui et al, 2013;Chtourou et al, 2012;Giacomoni et al, 2006;Hamouda et al, 2012;Racinais et al, 2005Racinais et al, , 2010Souissi et al, 2004Souissi et al, , 2007Souissi et al, , 2008Zarrouk et al, 2012;). However, previous findings regarding peak power are inconsistent.…”

“…Findings from these studies have consistently reported a time-of-day difference for peak power output, with higher values in the mid-afternoon or early evening when compared with the morning ($3.1% to 7.6%) for either the first or first few sprints only (Racinais et al, 2005(Racinais et al, , 2010 or for several sprints (Souissi et al, 2004(Souissi et al, , 2010. The percentage decrement in power over the repeated sprints has also been reported to show diurnal differences Racinais et al, 2005;Zarrouk et al, 2012), with higher decrements in the evening than the morning (4.0-13.1%), although some investigations have not found this result (Hamouda et al, 2012;Souissi et al, 2008). It has been suggested that the observation of a significant diurnal variation is depends on several factors -such as type and intensity of task, motivation of subjects to perform the task, time on task and subject familiarisation regarding the task to be performed Giacomoni et al, 2005;Reilly et al, 1997).…”

Individuals with intellectual disability have lower voluntary muscle activation level

“…Neuromuscular efficiency (NME) was calculated as the ratio of peak force to the sum RMS of the VL, RF, and VM muscles to provide an overall representation of quadriceps muscle group activity (Deschenes et al, 2002;Woods & Bigland-Ritchie, 1983;Zarrouk et al, 2012).…”