Are competition success and time trial performance related to training patterns in elite orienteering athletes?
Creators: name: Roos, Lilian
name: Wyss, Thomas
Publisher: name: SGS
Year: 2018
Subjects: Sport Competition success Trial performance Monitoring

description: Introduction: Competitive elite athletes train hard for many hundreds of hours a year to achieve specific goals, such as medals at world championships. Orienteering is a complex sport in which the athletes train physical, cognitive, and tactical components (Creagh &amp; Reilly, 1997). The aim of the present study was to detect training patterns, which might enhance orienteering athletes’ chances of achieving their physical performance and competition goals. Methods: The participating athletes submitted their training diaries and gave permission to assess their medical files, including the annual 5000 meter time trial performance test Results. Competition success was assessed by the individual World Cup ranking. Data of 15 Swiss elite orienteering athletes during their competition year of age 23 years were analyzed to investigate the effect of training patterns on competition success. To assess the influence of training patterns on competition success and athletic performance, multiple linear regressions were performed. Results: The athletes trained on average 9.1 ± 1.7 training sessions per week with a total duration of 9.0 ± 1.3 hours of athletic training and 0.9 ± 0.3 hours of regeneration training per week. Mul tiple linear regressions revealed that five variables were significant predictor variables of com petition success (World Cup points) and seven variables significantly predicted athletic perfor mance (5000 meter time trial). Female gender, higher frequency of training sessions, longer orienteering duration, higher proportion of high-intensity interval training within total running, and a fast 5000 meter time trial performance positively predicted World Cup points within this group of athletes and explained 72.7% of the observed variance in competition success. Male gender, lower frequency of training sessions, longer total training duration, longer total running duration, shorter orienteering duration, shorter high-intensity interval training, and higher pro portion of high-intensity interval training within total running were significant predictor variables of a fast 5000 meter time trial performance. These variables explained 97.4% of the observed variance in individual athletic performance. Discussion: In this homogeneous group of nationally and internationally successful Swiss orienteering ath letes, certain training patterns seem to be beneficial for competition success and athletic per formance. Duration of orienteering, total frequency, proportion of high-intensity interval training within total running, and gender remained in both regression analyses in the final model. To conclude, in orienteering it is an advantage to be a fast runner, indicated by the influence of the predictive variable 5000 meter time trial performance on competition success. However, other factors not necessarily beneficial for the 5000 meter time trial performance are also im portant, such as longer duration of orienteering, higher training frequency, and higher propor tion of high-intensity interval training compared to total running training time.