Repeated Sprint Performance

The use of repeated sprint testing has increased in recent years to quantify an important element of the fitness requirements in team sports including both court and field sports. Such sports are popular throughout the world. Athletes engaged in these disciplines are required to repeatedly produce maximal or near maximal efforts i.e. sprint while also have the ability to recover as quickly as possible and to delay the onset of fatigue. The aim of this study was to compare active recovery and passive recovery and their effect on sprint speed and lactate accumulation, such sports include Gaa, soccer, rugby, hockey, tennis and squash. Spencer et al (2005) suggest that the exercise intensities and sprint activities observed during elite field-hockey

The ability to produce the best possible average sprint performance over a series of sprints (<60 seconds) recovery periods has been termed repeated-sprint ability (RSA). (Bishop et al 2011). This repeated sprint performance is vital component in team sports (Rampinini et al 2007). Apparently most players experience fatigue towards the end of games Moher et al (2003) states that high intensity running is reduced dramatically in the last 15 minutes of a game. So if a player can utilise a recovery method during a game that can benefit their ability to perform at high intensity runs towards the end of a game it would have huge

This inability to replicate performance in succeeding sprints (i.e., fatigue) during repeated-sprint exercise has been mainly due to the changes within the muscle itself. Da Silva et al (2010) believes the inability to maintain repeated-sprint performance has strong links to metabolites accumulation, such as increase in lactate, the accumulation of hydrogen ions , and the depletion of muscle phosphocreatine. By definition, the LT occurs at the highest exercise intensity where lactate production and removal are balanced (Menzies et al., 2010) The rise in blood lactate levels above resting levels as exercise intensity increases is an indication that some muscle fibres are not able to handle all the exercise load aerobically.High intensity exercise leads to decreased creatine phosphate (CP) levels and increased lactic acid levels in the muscles (Wadley et al., 1998). The duration of the high intensity efforts will control the level of CP reduction and amassing of lactic acid it is when this increase production of lactic acid increases beyond its buffer rate the lactate threshold is met any further increase will cause problems with muscle contraction as H+ ions