Defensive Strategy and Player Sex Impact Heart-Rate Responses During Games-Based Drills in Professional Basketball

Abstract

Purpose: Games-based drills (GBD) are the predominant form of training stimulus prescribed to male and female basketball players. Despite being readily manipulated during GBD, the impact of defensive strategy on the sex-specific demands of GBD remains unknown. Therefore, the aim of this study was to quantify and compare the heart-rate (HR) responses experienced during 5v5 GBD using different defensive strategies (man-to-man defense vs zone defense [ZD] formations) according to player sex. Method: HR was recorded in 11 professional male and 10 professional female basketball players while performing 5v5 GBD with different defensive strategies (man-to-man defense or ZD). HR-based training load was also calculated using the summated heart-rate zones model. Results: During man-to-man defense, mean HR (), relative time (in percentage) spent working at 90% to 100% maximal HR (), and summated heart-rate zones () were greater (P < .05) in female players compared with males. During ZD, higher (P < .01) peak HR (), mean HR (), relative and absolute (in minutes) time spent working at 80% to 89% maximal HR ( and .03, respectively) and 90% to 100% maximal HR ( and .09, respectively), and summated heart-rate zones () were observed in female players compared with males. Conclusions: The defensive strategy employed during 5v5 full-court GBD influences HR responses and training load differently according to sex, where female players experience higher HR responses than males, especially when ZD are adopted. Basketball coaching staff can use these findings for the precise manipulation of team defenses during GBD to elicit desired cardiovascular stress on players.

Long-Term Analyses of the Rate of Perceived Exertion as an Indicator of Intensity in Women’s Basketball during a Relegation Play-off

“…This value is equivalent to a perception greater than 7 on the 0-to-10-point scale. This difference could be determined by various factors such as the physical level of the players, the dynamics of the game itself, the defensive system applied [ 32 ], the number of rotations made during the matches, or the accumulated fatigue levels, both due to the normal development of the season and because of participants’ work obligations due to being amateurs. Although our study was conducted during a relegation phase, which could increase stress levels in players by altering their RPE, we cannot guarantee that the two are related due to not having data to compare relegation phase matches with regular matches.…”

Monitoring Internal Load in Women’s Basketball via Subjective and Device-Based Methods: A Systematic Review

“…With regard to the devices, only four studies provided complete information on the manufacturer, sampling frequency, and body placement (wrist, chest, or upper body) [4,34,35,37]. These sensors were used during practice sessions [4,20,23,28,34,44,48,50,58,60], games [17,19,31,33,35,37,45,46,52,55,61,62], or both events [24,26,30,32,35,47,49,53,57]. Heart rate was the most commonly used method to assess physiological response, although a variety of metrics were obtained and used to measure and evaluate the internal load, including the average HR (HR Avg ), maximum HR (HR Max ), minimum HR, percent of maximum HR (%HR Max ), percent of average HR (%HR Avg ), total time, or percentage of time spent in different HR zones (2-8 zones), TRIMP B , and SHRZ.…”

“…Table 1 summarizes the data in relation to the populations and events studied. Regarding the participants' level of competition, a total of 16 studies included youth athletes, with 12 studies collecting data during training [4,16,20,21,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] and 8 studies collecting data during competition [22,26,27,[29][30][31][32][33]. Additionally, seven studies investigated the internal load in elite players during training [4,18,27,[34][35][36] and six studies investigated the internal load in elite players during competition [26,31,[35][36][37][38].…”

“…Additionally, seven studies investigated the internal load in elite players during training [4,18,27,[34][35][36] and six studies investigated the internal load in elite players during competition [26,31,[35][36][37][38]. Among the professional players, 13 publications monitored the physiological response, with 7 studies monitoring it during practice [28,[39][40][41][42][43][44] and 7 monitoring it during competition [32,39,41,42,[45][46][47]. Finally, 12 studies investigated amateur players, with 5 studies monitoring them during practice [48][49][50][51] and 10 studies monitoring them during competition [49,[51][52][53][54][55][56].…”

“…Nineteen articles investigated the physiological response of female basketball players only during practice [4,16,20,21,23,25,28,34,[39][40][41]43,44,48,50,[57][58][59][60], while fourteen publications examined internal load only during competition [17,22,31,[33][34][35]37,45,46,52,54,55,61,62] and eleven studies analyzed internal load in both events [24,26,27,29,32,35,36,47,51,53,56]. Among the included studies, 24 reported the type of tasks [4,16,[20][21][22]…”