Measuring Workload in Team Sport Athletes

Question 1

Give some examples of internal load measurements

Answer 1

RPE, S-RPE, heart rate, heart rate:RPE ratio, lactate concentration, lactate:RPE ratio, heart rate reserve, HRV, biochemical/hormonal/immunological, questionnaires and diaries, sleep

Question 2

Give some examples of external load measurements

Answer 2

Powe ouutput, speed, time-motion analysis, neuromuscular function

Question 3

Discuss acute and chronic load and how they affect fatigue

Answer 3

Acute load is the load in the last week, chronic load is a weekly average of load over the past 4 weeks, acute load > chronic load leads to fatigue, occasional hard weeks gradually increase chronic load without excessive fatigue, ‘sweet spot’ of acute:chronic load ratio is 0.8-1.3, anything above 1.5 increases risk of injury

Question 4

Explain the ‘sweet spot’ of work load and how coaches can use it with their athletes

Answer 4

‘Sweet spot’ of acute:chronic load ratio is 0.8-1.3, anything above 1.5 increases risk of injury, can use the upper and lower thresholds to manage training by allocating occasional hard weeks and allowing for adaptation whilst reducing injury risk, limitation is that the method is univariant when training load is multivariant

Question 5

Why is session RPE preferred to GPS when measuring load in athletes?

Answer 5

Resistance training is one of the most fatiguing forms of training and can’t be measure using GPS so coaches could prescribe training loads above the upper threshold (1.3) of the acute:chronic load ratio and risk overtraining and injury of an athlete