FITNESS TESTS & HYDRATION STATUS TO MONITOR THE FATIGUE IN INTERNATIONAL FUTSAL PLAYERS

Happy to see our paper "Fitness tests & hydration status to monitor the fatigue in international futsal players" published in the February-March issue of TRANCES: Revista de Transmisión Conocimiento Educativo y de la Salud. 

FULL ACCESS TO THE PAPER HERE!

Berdejo-del-Fresno, D. (2023). Tests físicos y estado de hidratación para monitorizar la fatiga en jugadores internacionales de futsal. Trances, 15(2):81-100

BENCHMARK54 - AN AMAZING TOOL TO MONITOR INJURIES & PERFORMANCE

Few weeks after I took charge of the International Futsal Academy (IFA) as new Head of Coaching & Sports Science I had a fantastic meeting in Loughborough University with Dr Laurence Heslop, co-founder of Benchmark54. In that meeting we agreed the use of the Benchmark54 platform within the IFA teams for the season 2014-2015 at free cost (thank you very much Dr. Heslop, I still appreciate it).

Now, almost 5 years after, working for Bay Area Futsal Club in California (USA), I have decided to review this fantastic platform that has grown amazingly. 

Benchmark54 system is multi-sport and multi user. It has four main attributes which allow you to manage your team across all disciplines and improve the integration between departments. Benchmark54 provides a fully comprehensive electronic medical record system with all the tools you would expect. Also, Benchmark54 helps you with the player load management as it tracks all activities and intensity in training and matches and your own specific GPS parameters in one place. Thirdly, the system helps sports science data record and analysis. Finally, Benchmark54 has a research driven data dashboard that brings all the data together, with inbuilt calculations and powerful ways to visualise data (data visualisation and analysis).

Benchmark54 allow you to:

• Add training data, attendance, duration and intensity. Upload GPS files and automatically match data.
• Record physiological, wellbeing, fitness and screening data.
• Add all injuries and illness and indicate effect on availability.
• Link injuries & illness with other data (load and other physiological measure for example).
• Track performance, injury incidence, team and individual player stats through their automated injury analytics dashboard.
• Review the year-on-year performance against historical data & league wide comparative data.
• Be part of their growing research community. Raining the standards in team sports medicine.

In the video above for example you can observe the training load, the monotony and the strain on one specific day. Also, you can observe the acute: chronic ratio and where the players are placed (high risk zone for soft tissue injury, moderate risk zone for soft tissue injury or sweet spot).

Finally, in the picture below you can see a whole month players availability, all the training sessions and their duration, games and minutes played, if players were missing and their reason...

This is only a briefly and small example of what Benchmark54 can provide to your organisation to know more about injury analytics and the power of data to support more effective athlete monitoring and injury prevention and management. 

FUTLOC TOOL: MONITOR & CONTROL THE TRAINING LOAD IN FUTSAL

Development and Validation of a New Method to Monitor and Control the Training Load in Futsal: the FUTLOC Tool

Berdejo-del-Fresno, D.: "Development and Validation of a New Method to Monitor and Control the Training Load in Futsal: the FUTLOC Tool." American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine 3.1 (2015): 23-27.

The main objective of a coach is to optimise athletic performance. The best performance improvements come from prescribing an optimal dose of physical training with proper recovery periods to allow for the greatest adaptation before competition. The main objective was to develop and validate a new, inexpensive, easy, non-invasive, real time tool to control and monitor the training load in futsal: the FUTLOC tool. Sixteen elite male futsal players from a national team volunteered to participate in this study (24.75 ± 3.36 years old, 176.21 ± , 71.50 ± 8.18 kg, BMI of 23.17 ± 2.22, and 60.11 ± 2.99 ml/kg/min of VO₂max. Training load was controlled and monitored daily with the FUTLOC tool. The RPE was measured using the 6-20 Borg scale. The Pearson’s product moment correlation between the means of intensity, RPE, training load and equivalent training load showed an excellent concordance (>0.75). To conclude, based on the results in this study and the literature reviewed, the FUTLOC tool seems to be a good method to control global internal training load in futsal. This method does not require any expensive equipment and may be very useful and convenient for coaches to monitor the internal training load of futsal players.

Find the paper here.

Basketball Training Load: The validation of the BATLOC Tool

I am glad to announce that one more paper from my PhD Thesis was recently published in the American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine.

Abstract: 

The main objective of a coach is to optimize athletic performance. The best performance improvements come from prescribing an optimal dose of physical training with proper recovery periods to allow for the greatest adaptation before competition. The main objective was to validate an inexpensive, easy, non-invasive, real time tool to control and monitor the training load in basketball: the BATLOC tool. Fourteen elite female basketball players from a top-4 team that competes in the England Basketball League Division I volunteered to participate in this study (20.50 ± 2.31 years old, 174.21 ± 4.17 cm, 75.21 ± 15.38 kg, BMI of 24.67 ± 4.23, 177.29 ± 7.60 cm of arm span, 19.01 ± 2.34 % of body fat, and 45.18 ± 4.17 ml/kg/min of VO2max. Two mesocycles were analized: pre-season (6 weeks) and in-season (10 weeks). Training load was controlled and monitored daily with the BATLOC tool. Heart rate was monitored for every player every 5 s in each training session. The RPE was measured using the 6-20 Borg scale. The Pearson’s product moment correlation between the means of intensity, RPE, heart rate, maximum heart rate and equivalent training load showed an excellent concordance (>0.75). To conclude, based on the results in this study and the literature reviewed, the BATLOC tool seems to be a good method to control global internal training load in basketball. This method does not require any expensive equipment and may be very useful and convenient for coaches to monitor the internal training load of basketball players.

Keywords: RPE, heart rate, periodisation, team sports.

• Berdejo-del-Fresno, D. & González-Ravé, J.M. Validation  of an instrument to control and monitor the training load in basketball: the BATLOC Tool. American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 2014, 2(4):171-176.

AJSSM SPECIAL ISSUE: A REVIEW ABOUT FUTSAL-PUBLISHED

About 9-10 months ago I was appointed Chief Guest Editor for a Special Issue in the American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. This morning the Special Issue has been published and I am glad to announce that all the articles can be downloaded from the following link.

The issue has the following papers:

1. Editorial
2. Analysis of the conducts of elite futsal goalkeeper in the different situations of the game.
3. Recovery & regeneration behaviours in elite English futsal players.
4. Questionnaire: Loss of entertainment in Spanish futsal (PEFSE)-Results Analisys.
5. Hydration habits of elite futsal players during official matches: defenders and forwards.
6. A retrospective study of the Yo-Yo IE2 test: can it be used to differentiate between different levels of futsal referees?
7. Heart rate variations in an elite futsal player after twelve years of maximum performance.
8. A pilot study of the physiological demands of futsal referees engaged in international friendly matches.
9. A systematic review of futsal literature.
10. Is futsal kicking off in England? A baseline participation study of futsal.

Finally, I would like to thank all the authors for their contributions and hard work to compile this special issue. Especially, I would to acknowledge my two Guest Editors and friends: Dr. A. Tessitore and Dr. A. J. Lara-Sánchez for their help in the edition of this issue.

BOOK RELEASED: FEMALE BRITISH BASKETBALL

I am glad to announce that on the 28^th December 2013 the book based on my PhD Thesis was officially released. The book entitled “Female British Basketball: research studies into body composition, fitness level and training load” (ISBN: 978-84-939866-2-9) has been published by Asociación Didáctica Andalucía (Spain). 

This book is free and we hope you consider sharing it with the world. Please do so under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence 3.0. You can download the book here.

Finally, I would like to give a big thanks to Asociación Didáctica Andalucia, my publisher, and B&B Studio, who designed the cover, without whom there would be no book.

PhD Thesis Abstract

There is a huge amount of articles analysing the anthropometry of basketball players, the parameters of basketball, its physiological demands, and the fitness level of the teams. However, the vast majority of these studies focus on male basketball players. There are only a few studies working on British high-level female basketball teams. Therefore, the main objectives of this thesis will be to study the body composition and fitness level of English and British female basketball players, and to desing a tool for controlling and monitoring the training load in basketball (BATLOC Tool). This thesis will be a compilation of 6 articles published in international journals. The general results obtained from the six studies show that (a) there is no differences when it comes to use of the Bleep test or the Yo-Yo test in order to calculate the maximum oxygen uptake through an indirect method. (b) The sample analysed of British female basketball players (from grassroots to high level) had fitness level and body composition values lower than high-level female basketball teams from countries where basketball is more popular and better developed probably due to the big difference in the number of traininig hours per week performed. (c) The BATLOC tool seems to be a good method to control global internal training load in basketball. This method does not require any expensive equipment and may be very useful and convenient for coaches to monitor the internal training load of basketball players and plan a proper periodisation, since the fitness level of players involved in this study improved through the season.

Keywords: BMI, arm span, agility, speed, endurance, periodisation, team sports, RPE, heart rate.

FEMALE BRITISH BASKETBALL PhD THESIS

The last 31^st of January 2013 I did my PhD viva in Toledo (Spain). The Thesis entitled “Body composition, fitness level and training load controlled through the BATLOC tool in female British basketball” was awarded the International Mention and the qualification of “Summa Cum Laude” (maximum qualification). The Thesis, supervised by Dr. José María González-Ravé, has been developed between the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) and the Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom). The PhD Thesis is supported by the following publications:

• Article 1: Berdejo-del-Fresno, D. and González-Ravé, J.M. The comparative use of the Bleep or Yo-Yo test in high-level British female basketball players. International SportMed Journal. Vol 14, N 3, September 2013, 119-126.

• Article 2: Berdejo-del-Fresno, D., Lara-Sánchez, A.J. and González-Ravé, J.M. Fitness level and body composition of elite female players in England Basketball League Division I. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Science. 2012, 4(2):15-24.

• Article 3: Berdejo-del-Fresno, D. and González-Ravé, J.M. Anthropometric and fitness development of British elite female basketball players: from grassroots to high level. Journal of Sports Therapy. 2011; 4(1):10-18.

• Article 4: Berdejo-del-Fresno, D. and González-Ravé, J.M. Development of a new method to monitor and control the training load in basketball: the BATLOC tool. Journal of Sport and Health Research. 2012; Vol IV Nº I:93-102.

• Article 5: Berdejo-del-Fresno, D. and González-Ravé, J.M. Validation of an instrument to control and monitor the training load in basketball: the BATLOC tool. Isokinetic and Exercise Science. Under review.

• Article 6: Berdejo-del-Fresno, D. and González-Ravé, J.M. Fitness seasonal changes relative to training load in English female basketball players. Basketball Research. Under review.

From left to right: Dr. Javier Pérez-Tejero (panel’s Secretary, INEF-Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain), Dr. Daniel Juárez Santos-García (panel's Member, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain), myself, Dr. Joao Paulo Vilas-Boas (Panel's President, Porto University, Portugal), my supervisor Dr. José María González-Ravé and the Dean of the Faculty Dr. Jose Manuel García-García.

The Thesis has studied the fitness component of the English and British female basketball players from grassroots (U17) to high level (Great Britain National Team) through the compilation of the previous six articles. Probably, this Thesis is the first one that studies the female basketball in England and the United Kingdom. 

The Thesis will be published very soon in a book, therefore if you would be interested in having a copy, you can contact me by email, and I will give you more details.

FUTSAL TRAINING LOAD CONTROL: THE FUTLOC TOOL

These last days I have been in Rome delivering a talk in a seminar about futsal and football, as part of the IP-SPALC. The seminar “Research issues for talent detection” was made up by three talks. 

My talk, the first one, was entitled “Periodisation & training load control in futsal” (video here). Basically, I showed how we periodise at Manchester Futsal Club and at the England National Futsal Squad, and how we control the players’ recovery and regeneration.

Controlling and monitoring the daily training load is essential to achieve the best performance, but recovery and regeneration are of the same or more importance. In order to control the players’ recovery and regeneration we use three tools: the recovery and regeneration points system developed by Kentta & Hassmen (1999), the rating of perceived fatigue & rating of perceived exertion (Borg, 1970), and the analysis of the urine osmolality. Regarding the control of the training load, I released publicly for the first time the FUTLOC Tool (Futsal Training Load Control Tool). The FUTLOC tool is based on the BATLOC tool (Basketball Training Load Control Tool) (Berdejo-del-Fresno & González-Ravé, 2012) and I started to develop it when I began to work in futsal two years ago.

The second talk was “Growth, maturation, performance and technical skills: implication to talent identification” by António J. Figueiredo (University of Coimbra and Académica de Coimbra). He spoke about the differences between chronological age and  biological age and their implications in children football performance.

Finally, the last speaker was Fulvio Casadei (technical director of the youth football academy “Atletico Manè”), with the talk “A practical method for rhythmic training in young soccer players”. He showed an interesting method to work with children using music and technical drills that can develop the players’ skills as well as their perception and coordination. I found this method very interesting and applicable to futsal due to the great use of the sole in this sport. Something similar is being developed in Australia by Zova: Play to the Rhythm.

THE IP-SPALC

I am very happy to announce that in a couple of weeks I will be delivering a talk at the Intensive Programme on Sport Performance: a Lifespan Challenge (IP-SPALC) in Rome (Italy).

The first thing that I would like to say is a BIG THANK YOU to the organising committee, especially to Professor Antonio Tessitore who invited me to participate.

The IP-SPALC will take place at the University of Rome “Foro Italico” (Italy), which is the city’s 4th state university, as well as the only Italian and one of the few European vocational universities entirely devoted to sport and exercise science. The University is the direct heir of the Italian Sport Academy, established in 1928, and it is located in the monumental area of “Foro Italico” in Rome, where some of the city’s most famous sport structures are based.

Quoting the event’s coordinator Laura Capranica’s message: “The Intensive Programme on Sport Performance: a Lifespan Challenge (IP-SPALC) is designed to provide an overview of the sport performance as a multidisciplinary structure, which reflects and depends on relevant technical, physiological, psychological, ethical, political, economical, organizational and legislative aspects.

The IP-SPALC will develop interdisciplinary communication for constant involvement of the findings (sharing competences) and a multidisciplinary educational approach (i.e., the same problem observed from different disciplinary points of view), integrating theoretical (morning lectures) and practical competences (afternoon workshops) to deal, at research and/or intervention level, with the complexities of sport performance.

The quality of the program will be guaranteed by the involvement of Faculty and Research Units from Institutions internationally recognized for educational excellence and scientific merits, and the partnership with private stakeholders in the sport area.”

The IP-SPALC will last two weeks with an intense and fantastic programme that will cover areas such as “New fronteirs in sport sciences”, “Neuromuscular function of human performance: from laboratory to field research”, “Research issues for succesful aging”, “Designing and implementing sport interventions” or “Amateur and elite sport performance”, and will have keynote speakers like Carl Foster (University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse, USA), Jan Cabri (Norwegian School of Sports Sciences, Norway), Giuseppe de Vito (University College, Dublin), Rade Durbaba (Northumbria University, UK), John Shea (Indiana University, USA) and Antonio Figueiredo (University of Coimbra, Portugal), among others.

Regarding my presentation, the talk will be entitled “Periodisation & training load control in futsal” and it will be part of the seminar “Research issues for talent detection”, which will be held at the amazing San Francesco’s Roman Church in Capranica (Viterbo, Italy).

BASKETBALL TRAINING LOAD CONTROL: THE BATLOC TOOL

In my third post I promised to share with you the new findings and the new version of the BATLOC tool. As I said before, the BATLOC tool was developed by me and Sergio Sánchez-Pérez “Pinzas” in the 2005/2006 season of a professional Spanish basketball team (Alta Gestión Fuenlabrada S.A.D.). The tool has been used in different teams in Spain (Baloncesto Fuenlabrada S.A.D., C.B. Granada and Fundación 6.25) and in the UK (Manchester Mystics Women’s Basketball Club, Leeds Carnegie Women’s Basketball Club, the North West Under 17 Women’s Basketball Squad, the Great Britain Under 20 Women’s Basketball Team and the BBL team Mersey Tigers) by me, “Pinzas” and Spanish S&C coach José Fernández. Most importantly, during the last years the tool has been modified, adapted and improved, and its final version and usefulness can be seen in my latest article.

This paper is the second one of my PhD articles. Only four to go now! It has been published in the Journal of Sport and Health Research, with ISSN 1989-6239, and its reference is:

-    Berdejo-del-Fresno, D. and González-Ravé, J.M. Development of a new method to monitor and control the training load in basketball: the BATLOC tool. Journal of Sport and Health Research. 2012; 4(1):93-102.

Here is the abstract for your information:

An adequate training load is essential to achieve the best performance and avoid any injuries. Nevertheless, to control and monitor the training load in real time in team sports is quite difficult, since there is no easy, cheap or non-invasive method or tool. The simple software described in this article, created in Microsoft Excel, can be used to predict the training load and plan a proper periodization of the future training load during the pre-season and the in-season training phase in basketball.

TRANSLATION INTO ITALIAN OF BASKETBALL PAPER

I have just heard that one of my first scientific papers on baskeball has been translated into Italian by the Associazione Preparatori Fisici Italiani Pallacanestro (the Italian Basketball Strength and Conditioning Association). How good is that! You can now see the Italian version “Composizione corporea e carico di allenamento nel basket” (November 2011) on the APFIP website. I decided to write this post because I think it is a great thing that the paper is now accessible to speakers of one more language.

The article was based in a tool developed by me and Sergio Sánchez-Pérez “Pinzas”, who had the initial idea. The original article was entitled “Body composition and training load in basketball: a direct connection in the high level” and was written by me, S&C coach “Pinzas” and sports doctor José Fernando Jiménez-Díaz. It was originally written in Spanish, only the title and the abstract being written in English (a big sorry, fellas!). Basically, we developed a tool to control the training load in a professional Spanish basketball team (Alta Gestión Fuenlabrada S.A.D.) during the season 2005-2006. Each drill was assigned a training load value and, at the end of the session, the aggregated training load of all drills represented the session training load. The training load recorded was correlated with the anthropometric measurements performed during the season. The paper was published in 2008 in the journal EFDeportes. Revista Digital, with ISSN 1514-3465. This is the article’s whole reference:

-         Berdejo-del-Fresno, D., Sánchez-Pérez, S. and Jiménez-Díaz, J.F. Body composition and training load in basketball: a direct connection in the high level. EFDeportes. Revista Digital. Year 13, N 119.

Below is the abstract in English for those of you who are interested:

Size, structure and body proportions, as well as body composition, are important factors related to sport performance in basketball. The aims of this research on high level basketball players were, firstly, to describe the development of their body composition along the season, and secondly, to link these changes with the training load. Cineanthropometry and training load were monthly measured in 9 basketball players from an ACB League team (age: 28.67 ± 4.06, weight: 97.67 ± 9.64 kg and height: 198.67 ± 7.94 cm). The annual means of fat percentage and lean percentage were 11.7 ± 2.76% and 47.96 ± 3.22%, respectively. A direct (low) correlation of these variables with the training load was noticed. Measuring the body composition of basketball players can be a useful and simple tool as a method of training load control and assessment.

Since then, the tool has been used by “Pinzas” with Baloncesto Fuenlabrada S.A.D. and C.B. Granada, two Spanish professional teams competing in the ACB League (the highest Spanish division). I myself have also used the tool with Baloncesto Fuenlabrada S.A.D. and Fundación 6,25 in Spain, as well as with Manchester Mystics Women’s Basketball Club, Leeds Carnegie Women’s Basketball Club, the North West Under 17 Women’s Basketball Squad and the Great Britain Under 20 Women’s Basketball Team. Finally, Spanish S&C coach José Fernández also made use of our tool with Mersey Tigers, a British Basketball League team, during the season 2010-2011.

What is more important, six years after the creation of the tool and thanks to all my previous experiences in teams with a wide range of age, both genders and different levels, I have modified, improved and validated the tool. I promise to share with you the new findings and the tool’s new version very soon. So if you are interested in controlling and monitoring the training load in baskeball, keep an eye in this blog!