Athlete Workloads During Collegiate Women's Soccer Practice: Implications for Return to Play

Abstract

Context Athlete monitoring via wearable technology is often used in soccer athletes. Although researchers have tracked global outcomes across soccer seasons, little information exists on athlete loads during individual practice drills. Understanding these demands is important for athletic trainers in making decisions about return to play. Objective To provide descriptive information on total distance, total player load (PL), total distance per minute, and PL per minute for practice drill structures and game play by player position among female soccer athletes across a competitive season. Design Retrospective observational study. Setting National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I university. Patients or Other Participants A total of 32 female collegiate soccer players (age = 20 ± 1 years, height = 168.75 ± 4.28 cm). Intervention(s) Athletes wore a single global positioning system and triaxial accelerometer unit during all practices and games in a single soccer season. Individual practice drills were labeled by the team's strength and conditioning coach and binned into physical, technical and tactical skills and large- and small-sided competition drill structures. Main Outcome Measure(s) Descriptive analyses were used to assess the median total distance, total PL, total distance per minute, and PL per minute by drill structure and player position (defender, forward or striker, and midfielder) during practices and games. Results Large- and small-sided competition drills imposed the greatest percentage of workload across all measures for each position (approximately 20% of total practice), followed by physical drills. When comparing technical and tactical skills drills, we found that technical skills drills required athletes to cover a greater distance (approximately 17% for technical skills and 15% for tactical skills), and tactical skills drills required higher play intensity during practices across all positions (approximately 18% for technical skills and 13% for tactical skills). Defenders had the highest median PL outcomes of all positions during practices. Conclusions Different practice drill types imposed various levels of demands, which simulated game play, on female soccer athletes. Athletic trainers and other clinicians may use this information in formulating objective return-to-play guidelines for injured collegiate women's soccer players.