ABSTRACT

Soccer is separated from other sports by its intermittent activity profile. This results in the physiological demands being more complex than continuous exercise (Drust et al., 2000). The demands of soccer-specific intermittent exercise have been obtained by measuring physiological and metabolic responses during competitive and practice games (Rhode and Espersen, 1988; Bangsbo, 1994; Impellizzeri et al., 2005). Such direct monitoring of actual physiological responses to match-play would seem to be the most effective way of determining the physiological cost of soccer-specific intermittent activity (Drust et al, 2007). In reality these procedures are limited by a number of theoretical and practical methodological issues. This may therefore limit the usefulness of the data in terms of its ability to accurately describe the physiological requirements of the sport. An alternative model to this approach is to attempt to recreate the demands of the sport using laboratory-based simulations. This approach provides the controlled conditions required in experimental investigations and/or the depth of understanding associated with laboratory-based analytical procedures (Drust et al.,2000). A small number of researchers have attempted to devise soccer-specific laboratory-based protocols that replicate the exercise patterns observed during match-play using both motorized (Drust et al., 2000) and non-motorized treadmills (Clarke et al., 2005). Such protocols elicit broadly similar physiological responses to those observed in games thereby supporting their efficacy as suitable experimental models to apply to the sport.