This study aimed to examine performance changes in lacrosse players during a 24-week competitive season (including 22 weeks of periodized resistance training (RT)). Eleven male lacrosse players (age 24.5 ± 4.3 years, height 180.4 ± 5.6 cm, body mass 80.5 ± 5.7 kg, 1 repetition maximum (1RM) back squat (BS) 113.3 ± 17.8 kg, 1RM power clean (PC) 67.2 ± 19.7 kg) participated in this study. Testing included 5-, 10-, 20-m sprints, change of direction (COD), countermovement jump (CMJ), and squat jump (SJ). Testing sessions occurred during week one (T-1), week six (T-2), week 15 (T-3), and week 24 (T-4) of a domestic season. Significant improvements in 20-m sprint performance occurred from T-1 to T-4 (3.04 ± 0.07 seconds, 2.98 ± 0.08 seconds, p = 0.018). Left leg COD tests significantly improved from T-1 to T-2 (3.20 ± 0.15 seconds, 3.10 ± 0.13 seconds, p = 0.005), and T-1 to T-4 (3.20 ± 0.15 seconds, 3.07 ± 0.12 seconds, p = 0.014). Right leg COD tests significantly improved from T-1 to T-4 (3.20 ± 0.15 seconds, 3.08 ± 0.12 seconds, p = 0.002), and T-3 to T-4 (3.20 ± 0.15 seconds, 3.08 ± 0.12 seconds, p = 0.001). SJ height significantly decrease from T-1 to T-2 (38.2 ± 2.63 centimeters, 36.7 ± 2.57 centimeters, p = 0.008). Results demonstrate that improvements in sprint and COD performance can occur during the season in male lacrosse players engaged in periodized RT, therefore coaches and strength and conditioning coaches should focus on development rather than maintenance in season.
KeywordsPeriodization; Sprint performance; Power; Monitoring performance [2,3]. Performance measures such as strength, power, and speed are often monitored and assessed to indicate an athlete's current level of physical performance as well as response to a training stimulus. Video analysis of work: rest intervals in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's lacrosse reported that performance relied primarily on anaerobic metabolism [4], although no direct metabolic measurements were calculated. Research on male club team lacrosse players has indicated that aerobic capacity levels in these athletes are similar to values seen in college basketball, team handball, and ice hockey athletes but less than observed in soccer players [5][6][7]. Similarly, power output in Lacrosse players has also shown to be much lower than that seen for other anaerobic athletes (i.e. football and basketball players) [5,6]. To the author's knowledge, these are the only two studies on male lacrosse players, describing the physiological needs of lacrosse, and detailing performance variables for male club players [4,6].Several studies have documented the physiological and anthropometric characteristics of professional athletes [8][9][10][11] Although these studies have described the physical characteristics of professional athletes and provided insight into the physiological demands of several sports such as soccer [9], lacrosse [7,12] Extensive research has examined the magnitude of change in performance expected over short periods of ...