Effects of different exercise intensities in the morning on volleyball performance components in the afternoon

Poster

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of two different exercise interventions in The morning on volleyball-specific components of performance in the afternoon under conditions simulating a competition day. In the morning on 3 experimental days, 12 volleyball players (age 24.1 ± 5.5 years) completed three different preload interventions that were applied in a counter-balanced order: (1) no intervention (NI); (2) moderate-intensive exercise (MI); and (3) high-intensive exercise (HI).The subjects performed the preload exercises, consisting of a small-sided game and repeated maximal sprints, from 10:00–11:00 a.m. At 3:00 p.m., the Bangsbo test (BT) was applied to examine the effects of the different morning interventions on volleyball-specific endurance capacity. The results showed that the HI led to significantly higher blood-lactate concentrations (moderate to very large effect) and heart rates (very large to extremely large effect) compared to the MI. In addition, there was a significant measurement × intervention effect on concentrations of adrenalin and noradrenalin in the urine, which reached higher values immediately after the HI(very large effect) and MI (moderate effect) compared to NI. All effects disappeared by the time of the BT in the afternoon. During all trials, after the preload intervention, reaction time and critical flicker fusion frequency increased significantly compared to the baseline morning values (reaction time: small; critical flicker fusion: trivial to small effect), but no measurement × intervention interaction was found. During the BT, the mean total distance covered (trivial to small effect) and the pacing pattern did not differ significantly among the trials despite numerous small individual effects. We conclude that exercise interventions of various intensities in the morning have no general effect on volleyballspecific components of performance in the afternoon despite significant metabolic, endocrinology and cognitive short-term effects. Coaches should consider individual preferences when prescribing competitionday procedures.