THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING SESSION COMPOSITION TO TRAINING PERIODISATION MODELS IN PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

Introduction. Training sessions in professional football have typically been designed by technical coaches to achieve pre-determined outcomes. Various activities are combined to form individual training elements and the product of these elements form a training session. Commonly four categories have provided the foundation for team and individual player development (Ade et al., 2016; Buckthorpe et al., 2019). The efficiency in which physical, technical, tactical and psycho-social categories are combined in match play often leads to success. It is therefore prudent for clubs to design training sessions with these factors in mind, both in the short and long term. The level of focus attributed to the four categories during routine training sessions remains largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to assess the relative importance of training session composition to training periodisation models in professional football. Methods. A quantitative study design was used to determine the level of focus placed on each of the categories from 72 training session throughout the 2nd half of a Championship (UK) session. An expert panel (1 x coach, 1 x sports scientist, 1 x training analyst) was formed to provide a rated interpretation of the level of focus placed on each category of each element of the full training session. The rated values were combined with the element duration to provide a relative value. The level of overall session focus could then be established relative to matchday (MD). Inter-rater reliability was carried out using a Cohens Kappa. Statistical analysis. Statistical analysis was carried out on all training sessions from December to April. The 4 training sessions in May weren’t truly representative of a full training month. Analysis was used to determine whether differences existed in total training sessions values between months and between day prior to MD. To determine the difference in months, a one-way ANOVA was carried out and significance set at p=<0.05. Where an effect was found a Dunn post hoc test was used (p<0.05) to establish where the differences were found between months. To establish comparison between categories separate analysis was carried out. Normality of distribution using a Shapiro Wilks test (p=<0.05) was carried out and data found to be not normally distributed (p=.781). Therefore a Kruskal-Wallis non parametric test was used. Where an effect was found a Dunn post hoc test was used (p<0.05) to establish where the differences were found between categories. A one-way ANOVA was also carried out to assess category variation existed between training days and significance set at p=<0.05. Where an effect was found a Dunn post hoc test was used (p<0.05) to establish the differences between training days. Results. The mean total value for all training sessions = 440.4 a.u ± 126 and 62.5% of sessions fell within a single standard deviation of the mean. When viewed across training months, significant difference was observed December and April (p=0.002), December and March (p=0.004) and December and January (p=0.028). Analysis between categories demonstrated a significant difference between physical to technical (p=0.013), physical to tactical (p=<0.001), physical to psycho-social (p=<0.001), technical to tactical (p=<0.001), technical to psych-social (p=<0.001) and tactical to psycho-social (p=<0.001). Results also indicated that there were significant differences in category focus relative to match day. Significant differences were demonstrated between 4 days before a match (MD-4) and the day before a match (MD-1) in all categories apart from tactical. Conclusion. The current study was able to demonstrate that differences exist in the time and focus of training session content. Further, it was evident the significant differences in the level of focus applied to categories exist month to month. Finally, significant differences were identified in the level of focus applied to categories between the early to late days of a weekly micro cycle, but not between days later in the week leading to match day. The results of this study go some way to providing insight onto the level of focus applied to each of the four categories.