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Iñigo Mujika

Physiology & Training
Players of Caja Laboral Baskonia performing a Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test. (Photo: Iñigo Mujika).

Players of Caja Laboral Baskonia performing a Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test. (Photo: Iñigo Mujika).

Most team sports are characterized by a high intensity, intermittent activity pattern. Team sport players (e.g. football, basketball, rugby, water polo) perform a high number of high intensity and sprint activities of various durations during match play. These bursts of intense activity are interspersed with lower intensity activities also of variable duration.

Insight into the cardiovascular and metabolic demands of these sports provided by simple physiological measurements such as heart rate and blood lactate also indicates that high demands are placed on both aerobic and anaerobic metabolic pathways during match play.

In view of these observations, it is clear that any performance test aiming at the assessment of a player’s physiological capabilities should take into account the intermittent nature of the game and try to mimic the metabolic demands of its intense exercise/recovery activity pattern.

Intermittent performance tests have been developed and validated to assess players’ match-fitness in several team sports. Some of these tests have been used to assess the performance capabilities of players and referees, and to evaluate the effects of various training and nutritional interventions on fitness and performance.

One such test is the Yo-Yo Intermitent Recovery Test (Bangsbo 1994), which has become in the past few years one of the most extensively investigated fitness test from a physiological perspective, but also one of the most widely used test in practical sport settings (Bangsbo 2008).

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I just spent two days in the UK, at the Premier League U18 Coches, Reserve Team, Development Squad Managers Meeting. It was an extremely interesting meeting which should lead to a much needed evolution (maybe I should even say revolution) in the English Football Academy system.

A few hours ago I left the UK and landed in Budapest, Hungary, to attend the ITU World Championship Series Grand Final, in which one of the athletes I coach, Ainhoa Murua, is racing. I am really looking forward to the men’s race on Saturday, with a showdown for the World Champion title between the Olympic Champion Jan Frodeno and the Spanish superstar Javier Gómez; but I am even more excited about the women’s race: Ainhoa has had an excellent season so far, she is well prepared, and we are both convinced that her best performance of the year could be around the corner.

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