AIDEEN MCGUINNESS, DAVID PASSMORE, DARREN KENNA & KIERAN COLLINS (2018) BASES Conference 2018 – Programme and Abstracts, Journal of Sports Sciences,36:sup1,1-94,DOI:10.1080/02640414.2018.1521633
Field hockey can be best described as an invasive team sport with many offensive and defensive skills inter- twined with intermittent moderate – high speed running bouts (Macutkiewicz, D. & Sunderland, 2011; McGuinness, A., Malone, S., Hughes, B. & Collins, 2018). The national field hockey season can be broken down into three phases, “pre-season”, “In-season” and “off-season”. During the “in-season” teams are required to play between two – four tournaments. Physical fitness, strength and flexibility are essential for optimal perfor- mance enhancement and injury prevention in team sports such as field hockey (Lemos, R., Paz, G., de Freitas Maia, M., Baptista da Silva, J., Lima, V., Brandão Pinto de Castro, J. & Miranda, 2017; Sharma & Kailashiya, 2017). Therefore, the aim of the current observational study was to investigate the anthropometric and perfor- mance characteristics of elite female field hockey players with respect to playing position between two time points. After institutional ethics was approved, 20 females (Age: 23.5 ± 3 years; stature: 164.1 ± 18.5 cm; body mass: 65.7 ± 5.9 kg) underwent anthropometric (body mass) and performance profiles (counter move- ment jump (CMJ; cm), 5-, 30–40 m sprint times, max velocity (m· s−1) and a Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 1 during “pre and in-season” phase. A significant main effect was observed across the majority of indepen- dent variables between testing points (Body mass; F=9.2,P≤0.001,η2 =0.2,CMJm;F=3.9,P=0.05, η2 = 0.1, 30 – 40 m sprint times; F = 4.0, P = 0.04, η2 =0.1,maxvelocity;F=4.4,P=0.04,η2 =0.1and YoYo lvl; F = 29.5, P ≤ 0.001, η2 = 0.4) A non-significant main effect was observed for 5 m sprint times (F = 1.6, P = 0.22, η2 = 0.04). Post hoc analysis revealed that there was no significant difference in anthropometric and performance characteristics of elite female field hockey players with respect of playing position. The results suggest that seasonal variation is present however due to players being trained within group-based activities these variations don’t extend to position. Previous research has shown match-play to be position specific therefore the results of the study suggest position specific training should take place within the “pre and in-season” phase.