Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

2020

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Health and Nutritional Sciences

First Advisor

Matthew Vukovich

Abstract

Objective: To measure the physical activity levels of Division I collegiate female soccer players with the use of accelerometers to help determine compensatory changes and help establish appropriate training rhythms through the course of a season.
Design: 25 female Division I soccer players volunteered to participate in a 7-day observational study. Players wore an ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometer during waking hours. Five second epochs were recorded and age appropriate physical activity cut points were used to determine the minutes of sedentary time (ST), light physical activity (LPA), moderate physical activity (MPA), vigorous physical activity (VPA) and moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during each day as well as during practice and outside of practice.
Results: ST was significantly greater during days of no practice compared to all other days of the week. VPA and MVPA were also lowest on non-practice days. LPA showed no significant difference between all days when looking at time spent out of practice. When looking at practice time only, there was no significant difference between practice sessions and ST, LPA, MVPA, and VPA. This resulted in the idea that the coach’s perception of the physical demands within a practice session were not significantly apparent.
Conclusion: The use of accelerometers can be used to help measure the activity intensities of soccer athletes throughout the course of a week. Utilizing the accelerometers for an entire season may provide additional information to be used for designing training programs. With the addition of other technology (heart rate and global positioning system (GPS)), there could be a greater sense of training load experienced for each athlete both on and off the field. Compensatory changes in activity was not observed through the collection of the data in this study.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Women soccer players.
Women college athletes.
College athletes -- Training of.
Soccer -- Physiological aspects.
Accelerometers.

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

36

Publisher

South Dakota State University

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Rights Statement

In Copyright