Abstract
Badminton, squash, table tennis, and tennis are four of the most popular racquet sports. In recent years, modifications in rules, equipment, and athletes’ physical fitness have led to changes in match structure and therefore also in demands on athletes of these sports. This has caused a sudden rise in requests for scientific research, since insight into a sport’s profile of requirements is crucial for efficient training monitoring. This review aims to offer a comprehensive overview about latest findings about activity profile and physiological responses in match play in the four racquet sports. Comparisons showed that the match structure of each of the four racquet sports is similar with regard to the intermittent character, but differences appear across all disciplines when comparing match, rally, and resting interval durations, work density, covered distances, and striking frequencies. Moreover, high average cardiorespiratory responses are reported for badminton and squash, but not for table tennis and tennis. In all racquet sports, continuous changes in high-intensity movement and periods of recovery are found, suggesting significant influence of both aerobic and anaerobic alactic energetic pathways. In contrast, lactic pathways seem to play an important role in squash, but less in the other racquet sports. These discrepancies in energetic demands are related to the differences in the total amounts of effort and recovery and their relationship to each other. To conclude, the four racquet sports have a lot in common, but each sport brings its own requirements. Badminton is highly dependent on reaction and anticipation, squash is high-intensity, table tennis is mostly skill-related, and tennis is less intensive, but of greatest volume of effort.
Zusammenfassung
Badminton, Squash, Tischtennis und Tennis zählen zu den beliebtesten Rückschlagsportarten. Änderungen innerhalb der Spielregeln, bezüglich der Ausrüstung und der allgemeinen physischen Leistungsfähigkeit der Athleten, haben bewirkt, dass sich die Spielstruktur und damit auch die Anforderungen an die Spieler verändert haben. Da es für eine möglichst effiziente Trainingssteuerung notwendig ist, das Anforderungsprofil des Sports genau zu kennen, hat dies zu einem rapiden Anstieg der Nachfrage nach evidenzbasiertem Wissen zu Rückschlagspielen geführt. Dieses Review soll einen umfangreichen Überblick über das Belastungs- und Beanspruchungsprofil in Badminton, Squash, Tischtennis und Tennis geben. Ein Vergleich zeigt, dass sich die Matchstruktur der vier Sportarten hinsichtlich der intervallartigen Gestaltung ähnelt, sich diese Intervalle allerdings nach Sportarten unterscheiden lassen. So konnten hinsichtlich der durchschnittlichen Spieldauer, Ballwechsel- und Pausenzeiten, Arbeitsdichte, Schlagfrequenz und der zurückgelegten Distanzen sportartspezifische und charakteristische Unterschiede festgestellt werden. Hinsichtlich der physiologischen Beanspruchung konnten die höchsten durchschnittlichen kardiorespiratorischen Werte im Squash und Badminton gezeigt werden, während diese in Tischtennis und Tennis deutlich geringer ausfallen. Der kontinuierliche Wechsel zwischen hochintensiven Spielphasen und kurzen Phasen der Regeneration ist charakteristisch für alle vier betrachteten Sportarten, weshalb von einer hohen Beteiligung der anaerob alaktaziden, aber auch der aeroben Stoffwechselvorgänge an der Energiebereitstellung ausgegangen werden kann. Die anaerob laktazide Kapazität scheint hingegen ausschließlich in Squash ein leistungslimitierender Faktor zu sein. Diese Charakteristika sind wiederum auf die unterschiedliche Intervallgestaltung der jeweiligen Matchstruktur zurückzuführen. Zusammengefasst kann festgehalten werden, dass die Belastungs- und Beanspruchungsformen der vier Sportarten durchaus einiges gemeinsam haben und dennoch jede Disziplin ihre eigenen Anforderungen mit sich bringt.
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A. Edel, Y. Song, T. Wiewelhove and A. Ferrauti declare that they have no competing interests.
For the present contribution the authors did not perform any studies with human participants or animals. For the studies discussed in this contribution apply the ethical guidelines statements as declared in the respective publications.
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Edel, A., Song, Y., Wiewelhove, T. et al. Activity profiles and physiological responses during match play in four popular racquet sports. Ger J Exerc Sport Res 49, 221–231 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-019-00610-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12662-019-00610-4