Abstract
The training demands of football places significant stress on the psychophysiological capabilities of football players and induces the elements of fatigue. To limit the impact of fatigue and avoid the onset of overtraining, training load monitoring tools and recovery methods are implemented. The mismanagement of training loads combined with ineffective recovery strategies may induce overtraining in athletes, leading to underperformance or even injury. The purpose of this case study was to observe a cohort of football players during the pre-season and understand how effective the recovery strategies being implemented on the team of players were. Initially, the cohort (players and coaches) was requested to report their preferred recovery methods. The players’ preferred recovery methods were sleep (78.3%) and cold-water immersion (60.9%). Preferred recovery methods indicated by the coaching staff were cold-water immersion (100%) and nutritional interventions (80%). Twenty-three football players from the same team were assessed for psychophysiological fatigue using the well-being questionnaire (WB-Q) and Borg’s category ratio scale (CR-10) during pre-season training. All training was prescribed by the coaching staff and the monitoring tools that were used during the study were session RPE tools. The recovery intervention included elements of active recovery, CWI and nutrition. The results showed that the recovery strategies being applied on this cohort were not perceived as effective for recovery. Mean scores from the study showed that the well-being of players dipped beneath the baseline (20 ± 2.28) and subsequently never returned (WB-Q (1): 18.8 (+2.53) (p<0.05); WB-Q (2): 19.5 (+2.92) (p<0.05); and WB-Q (3): 19.4 (+2.81) (p<0.05)). The results from the CR-10 suggested that the efficacy of recovery methods may range depending on the training load and volume. The results showed that the well-being of players was most affected on the days where the training demand was extremely high. Specifically, the CR-10 (1), reported the greatest perceived training load perceived by the players compared to the lowest perceived training load CR-10 (3) (p>0.05). The study showed the recovery methods within the cohort may have been ineffective, as baseline wellness scores were never attained. Possible reasons include the protocols used to implement the recovery strategies and the subjective training load being too intense for the recovery methods implemented. However, during pre-season training, players are subjected to increased...
M.Phil. (Sport Science)