خلاصة:
Background. Regardless of the age, elite athletes exhibit various motor capabilities (e.g., speed; endurance; strength) that are specific to that particular sport.
Objectives. The purpose of this study was to compare different aspects of physical fitness (agility, strength, endurance) in thirty, 9 year old elite soccer and hockey players.
Methods. Participants completed a 90 minute familiarization session, and returned at the later date to perform tests examining their agility (T-test), endurance (20mSRT), and strength (long jump; v-ups; push-ups; sit-ups). The tests were administered by an expert trainer at the same location. At the onset no inter-group differences were found for age, height, weight, foot size, number of years playing at the competitive level, and hours training per week, as well as scores from MABC assessment tool.
Results. A series of independent sample t-tests revealed statistical differences in endurance (p < .001, d = 3.57), and in strength tasks (p < .001, d = 1.66) (sit-ups, push-ups and v-ups) in favour of soccer group. However, hockey players were more agile (p < .001, d = 1.26) and generated more power as inferred from the long jump (p < .05, d = 1.1).
Conclusion. Overall, the results showed that some domains of movement proficiency are specific to either soccer (endurance/ strength) or hockey (agility/power). These results provided coaches with information in regards to their respective teams as well as individual players’ performance, and may aid in adaptations of the respective training programmes.
ملخص الجهاز:
The purpose of this study was to compare different aspects of physical fitness (agility, strength, endurance) in thirty, 9 year old elite soccer and hockey players.
Participants completed a 90 minute familiarization session, and returned at the later date to perform tests examining their agility (T-test), endurance (20mSRT), and strength (long jump; v-ups; push-ups; sit-ups).
Despite their young age, the players engage in extensive training to enhance their technical skills, game-related pedigree, and also to improve their motor performance in regards to their agility, speed, endurance and strength (3).
However, in the last few decades more and more hockey schools or clinics started to implement off ice training known as “dry-lands”, involving running, jumping, core strength exercises and static and dynamic stretches in order to improve the overall physical capabilities of the athletes, and their performance on ice.
The multi-stage 20-m shuttle run fitness test (20mMSFT) was developed by Léger and Lambert (9), and it is a popular aerobic field test that has been used among athletes of all levels, ages, and sports including soccer (10) and hockey.
The latter kind of tests appear to be more specific to sports such as hockey and soccer, as they allow inferring the ability to change the direction of the body rapidly as a result of a combination of strength, speed, balance and coordination.
In regards to strength, the soccer players also performed better than the hockey group, as inferred from the composite score for the respective subsection of the Bruiniks test (19).