Author(s): DI CLAUDIO, C., CONTE, D., FANCHINI, M., SHARP, C., CAPRANICA, L., Institution: UNIVERSITY FORO ITALICO OF ROME, Country: ITALY, Abstract-ID: 867

INTRODUCTION:
Football players are required to perform intermittent and multi-directional high-intensity accelerations and decelerations (HIAD), which impacts the players performance (1). Among various technologies to assess HIAD in football (2-3), Global Positioning System (GPS) devices and Inertial Measurements Units (IMU) embedded into GPS are often used to monitor the football players’ activities. The present systematic literature review aims to investigate the validity, reliability and responsiveness of HIAD metrics commonly used in football.
METHODS:
A systematic search of scientific articles published from January 1990 to March 2023 was conducted in three databases (PubMed, Web of Science and SPORTDiscus). Inclusion criteria were: full text in English; inclusion of information regarding the validity, reliability, and responsiveness of GPS and IMU of HIAD metrics. The study selection was performed by two independent authors assessing titles, abstracts and full text. The methodological quality of eligible studies was performed using the COSMIN checklist, therefore each study was rated on a 4-point scale: “very good”, “adequate”, “doubtful”, “inadequate”, and the lowest rating per measurement property was consider as quality outcome (4).

RESULTS:
Out of a preliminary list of 152 studies, 15 papers met the inclusion criteria and an additional 7 studies were identified through a snowballing technique, resulting in a total of 22 studies. Findings revealed 8 studies examining validity (construct validity: n=2; criterion validity: n=6). The construct validity studies focused on IMU metrics (i.e. player load) and showed a lack of gold standards, despite their “very good” methodological quality. Radar guns, timing gates and portable gas analyzer were used to validate peak acceleration/deceleration and metabolic power metrics in the criterion validity studies, with five showing “very good” methodological quality and one “doubtful”. Reliability was investigated in 17 studies with 2 rated as “adequate”, 13 as “doubtful”, and 2 as “inadequate” in methodological quality. The unclear stability of the participants, the time interval, and the conditions during the test and re-test procedures, negatively affected the methodological quality of the “inadequate” studies. Finally, no studies investigated the metrics’ responsiveness.

CONCLUSION:
The present systematic review generally highlights inconsistent methodological quality for both validity and reliability studies, which should caution sport scientists and football coaches in interpreting the collected HIAD metrics when monitoring daily practice. Therefore, further investigations are warranted to provide thorough validity, reliability and responsiveness of HIAD metrics in football.

REFERENCES:
1) Bangsbo J. Acta Physiol Scand Suppl 1994
2) Delaney JA, J Strength Cond Res. 2018
3) Harper DJ, Sports Med, 2019
4) Mokkink LB, Qual Life Res. 2018