Team sports performance is determined by the complex, non-linear interaction of several factors, including physical and physiological aspects, technical-tactical constraints, mental demands, perceptual and emotional aspects, and contextual and environmental factors. The influence of each of these aspects has been previously investigated. However, studies have often employed monodimensional perspectives, looking at one, or only a few different domains concurrently.
In football and rugby, extensive efforts have been produced to contextualize the demands of training and competition based on players’ characteristics, tactical constraints, and contextual factors. This information facilitates coaches in selecting the most appropriate training and competition strategies based on a number of different factors, including the team and the opponents’ characteristics, technical-tactical abilities, fitness status, and considering contextual factors. Differently, there is a lack of information on contextualized competition demands in other team sports, such as basketball, handball, futsal, and volleyball.
Furthermore, the mental demands and psychological and emotional implications of team sports have received little or monodimensional attention, limiting the applicability of findings in real-life scenarios where a multitude of factors belonging to different disciplines (e.g., physiology, psychology, training science, social sciences) need to be taken into account.
This Research Topic aims to examine the performance of team sports players and teams from a multidisciplinary perspective, encompassing the most influential determinants of performance.
By considering multiple determinants of team sport performance, we aim to generate multidisciplinary knowledge that can provide robust practical suggestions for coaches to implement in training and competition.
The manuscript submitted to this collection should contain at least one indicator of physical (e.g., GPS, accelerometers), physiological (e.g., heart rate, blood lactate, respiratory frequency), or perceived (e.g., perceived exertion, RPE, session RPE load) demands. Additionally, it should include at least one indicator belonging to one or more of the following domains:
And at least one indicator belonging to one or more of the following domains:
• individual characteristics (e.g., playing position, role, age, etc.) and capacities (e.g., aerobic fitness, lower limb power, repeated sprint ability, etc.)
• key performance indicators of the team sport investigated (e.g. passes, shooting, dribbling, efficiency indexes, turnovers, duels, tackles, etc.);
• tactical aspects of the team sport investigated (e.g. line up, formation, defensive style, type of play [e.g. live ball, set play, corner kick, transition, isolation, pick and roll, etc.]);
• contextual factors: game location, score line, opponent level, game moment/quarter, score streak, season phase, etc.;
• perceptual aspects: perceived exertion, perceived recovery, perceived fatigue/wellness, etc.;
• mental/cognitive demands: mental effort, mental fatigue;
• psychological/emotional aspects: anxiety, mood, stress, activation, etc.;
• and any other relevant performance domain.
This Research Topic aims at understanding competition demands; however, manuscripts including training data (especially of game-based conditioning and small-sided games) that encompass the domains listed above are also appropriate. There is no limit on the populations to be covered (i.e., can range from adult male and female players to youth and senior ages, as well as special populations/adapted sports).
Information for authors: Please be aware that this research topic is cross-listed with multiple journals and sections. When submitting your manuscripts, please ensure that they fall within the scope of the journal and sections to which you are submitting. Kindly note that the Exercise Physiology section only considers manuscripts that focus on the physiological mechanisms underlying the acute response to exercise as well as the adaptation to exercise from the molecular and cellular level to individual systems. Please see
here the scope statement of the section.