Interaction between the leg recovery test and subjective measures of fatigue in handball players : short-, mid-, and long-term assessment

Abstract

The physical and mental demands of handball during training or competition often lead to fatigue which can impair performance. Many attempts have been made to assess the level of fatigue in athletes either by objective (neuromuscular performance) or subjective (questionnaires) measures, however, their interplay over short-, mid-, and long-term periods is currently unknown. Knowledge about both types of assessments is important as load management by coaches is traditionally based on direct adjustments following a training session, adjustments of content structure of training weeks between games, as well as adjustments of load management over the entire competitive season. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the interplay between objective and subjective fatigue measures at multiple test times throughout a handball season.Methods: A total of 100 highly trained (Tier level 3) adolescent or young adult team handball players (23 females) took part in the study. The parameters tested were the Leg Recovery Test (LRT score) which is based on the countermovement jump height (CMJ) and was assessed by a commercial wristwatch (Polar Vantage V2) as an objective measure of neuromuscular fatigue. Additionally, on a subjective level, questionnaire-based athlete self-report measures, specifically the Perceived Recovery Status Scale (PRSS) and the Short Scale of Recovery and Strain (KEB) were assessed. We used nonparametric tests to detect differences between relevant test time points (short-term: immediately following one handball-specific training session, i.e., from T 0 to T 1 ; mid-term: over the course of three consecutive training days, i.e., from T 0 to T 2 ; long-term: over the course of eight months of training, i.e., from T 0 to T 12 ) and linear mixed models to evaluate the interplay between objective (LRT score) and subjective (KEB score and PRSS score) measures of fatigue across one season.Results: Non-parametric tests showed that CMJ height (p = .012) and the KEB (p < .001) were higher at T 1 compared to T 0 for the short-term assessment. Over the course of three consecutive training days (i.e., mid-term assessment), the CMJ height score decreased.