Load monitoring and management in elite basketball

After a systematic revision of the scholar literature about load monitoring inbasketball, we detected lack of information not only regarding the use of microtechnologybut also insufficient information about external/internal weekly trainingloads, short-term tapering models and training games among elite players. Eventually,the revision gave us directions to prepare the PhD project (see Figure 1). The mainintention of this project was to investigate team practices and match-play, in order tocontribute to scientific field of elite basketball, especially due to the fact that onlypaucity of research has focused on use of modern micro-technology. The wholeproject was divided into four parts, all of them around the same topic: external andinternal load monitoring.The first focus was on the analysis of relationship between various external(e.g. Player Load, accelerations, decelerations, jumps, changes of direction) and twointernal training load measures (e.g. RPE and sRPE). Even though these two methodsare of different construct, their complementary use is advised. In practice, it isimportant to understand the relationship between training dose (e.g. Player Load) andinternal response (i.e. RPE and sRPE). The second part also investigated both external and internal load measures butconsidering the training proximity to the match day and application of short-termtapering. In this study, for the period of three days prior to the game, progressivedecrease in training load was investigated. Moreover, use of Total Quality ofRecovery (TQR) questionnaire was presented as a marker of physical condition on thematch day. Finally, the relationship between training load and TQR scores could helpto understand the connection between accumulated training loads and players? physical response on a match day.The third part has been focused on the external and internal training loadanalysis between three playing positions (i.e. guards, forwards and centers). In teamsports, it is well known that different playing position elicit particular physical andphysiological responses in both game and training settings, but still there is a lack ofinformation using micro-technology. Therefore, data presented in this study couldhelp coaches to better understand both external and internal training demands of eachplaying position in elite basketball.The forth part aimed to compare external load demands between match-playand two training games used in team trainings. Match-play was recorded during preseasonaltraining camp and compared with regular-stop and no-stop training games.The results from this study can help coaches who are looking for specific constraintsin training drills that can elicit similar or greater physical demands as in basketballgame.Figure 1. Doctoral project scheme.4. EXTERNAL AND INTERNALTRAINING LOAD ANALYSISREGARDING PLAYINGPOSITIONS- Three playing positions willbe considered (guards,forwards and centers)- Principal ComponentsAnalysis will be implementedin order to profile playingpositions5.EXTERNAL LOADCOMPARISON BETWEENMATCH-PLAY AND TRAININGGAMES- Physical demands frommatch-play will be compared totwo formats of 5vs5 trainingtasks- Effect size will be used forquantifying the differencesCONCLUSIONS AND APPLICATIONS- The grade of correlation between external load variables and sRPE would be used to better understandindicators of load and their inter-relationship in elite basketball- Short-term tapering models will be investigated to find an optimal amount of training load and its dailydistribution prior to the match-day- Both external and internal load variables regarding each playing position in basketball would allowprofiling their particular activity- Analysis of specific training games would provide practical information about external physical demandscompared to demands of a match-play