Buchheit, M., & Eriksrud, O. (2024)
In elite football, assessing physical capacities such as sprinting speed, acceleration, deceleration, and change of direction (COD) is crucial for optimizing player performance and health. More precisely, this testing is believed to be important to profile individual player strengths and weaknesses, benchmark performances, and establish baseline values for injury recovery and rehabilitation. This testing is essential for tracking progress and refining training interventions. It also supports the calibration of GPS-based analyses (i.e., relative speed thresholds) by providing accurate benchmarks for maximal sprint speeds, accelerations, and decelerations, which are crucial for optimizing both between- and within-player analyses of training and game demands. Moreover, it plays a key role in injury mitigation, ensuring players meet the necessary speed and deceleration demands during training, particularly when approaching 90–95% of their individual maximal capacities. Various technologies are available to measure player performance during these specific tests. Motorized resistance devices, such as the 1080 Sprint, provide continuous measurements throughout the entire performance spectrum (i.e. sprint, change of direction), and are now considered the optimal choice due to their superior precision and reliability. In contrast, relying solely on timing systems or GPS offers limited accuracy. This study aims to introduce and validate a comprehensive testing protocol, using the 1080 Sprint, to evaluate critical physical capacities in elite football players. The tests include a 40-m straight-line sprint and the 15-0-5 COD test, which we believe are critical for assessing sprinting, acceleration, deceleration, and COD capacities in elite football players. The objective is then to identify metrics that offer the most distinct insights into various physical qualities and are easy to use in football (soccer). In addition, these tests will provide metrics that are familiar and practical for coaches and practitioners in field settings. Conclusion: This study provides a comprehensive analysis of various metrics that offer insights into top speed, acceleration, deceleration, and change of direction (COD) abilities using a newly proposed test battery. The key tests include the 40-meter straight-line sprint and COD tests, with particular emphasis on the 15-0-5, which we consider the most suitable complement to the 40-meter sprint for evaluating these specific capacities in relation to the demands of football.