Training and Competition Load in Female Basketball: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The scientific literature on women’s basketball is still limited, mainly in performance parameters. The purpose of this study was to analyse the state of art on the internal and external loads supported by female basketball players during sports practice. The design of this research is theoretical. The most relevant databases were searched for pertinent published studies according to the following keywords: “basketball”, “female” or “woman”, “training” or “competition”, “load” or “demand”. Of the 644 studies initially identified, 26 were selected for a complete review. These investigations were characterised by having as an objective an individualization of training for this type of population. Of the selected studies, it was evaluated: (i) goal (training, competition or both); (ii) category (stages: U14, U16, U18 and senior; level: state, national or international); (iii) type of load (Internal, External or both); (iv) instruments used and (v) variables analysed. The most studied goal was competition, mainly in senior national level, carrying out an analysis of the external and internal load together. Depending on the instruments and the variables used, the subjective load analysis was recurrent and important in the publication of articles in this topic. The quality of the studies was good, but for a better description of women’s basketball, there is a need to jointly investigate sports training and competition, to study the training categories and to use micro technology that guarantees obtaining objective and reliable data.

Load Measures in Training/Match Monitoring in Soccer: A Systematic Review

“…Through the kappa index, as used in other reviews [ 5 , 7 , 8 , 10 ], a value of 0.755 was obtained for interobserver reliability, indicating a substantial agreement between observers [ 12 ]. The quality of the articles included in this review is confirmed by the following indicators: the average quality score of the articles was 85.7%; 75 articles had a score above 75%, and below 100% (excellent methodological quality); 7 articles exposed scores between 51% and 75% (good methodological quality); and no article had a score equal to or less than 50% (low methodological quality).…”

“…To assess the quality of the studies, the risk-bias quality form used by Gómez-Carmona [ 5 ], Reina [ 7 ], Sarmento [ 8 ] and García-Santos [ 10 ], adapted from the original version developed by Law [ 11 ], was adopted. This evaluation is composed of 16 items and was performed by two researchers, with valuable expertise on this topic.…”

“…The introduction of the option “not applicable” allowed a correct score of the article, eliminating the negative effect of assuming the value 0 on a binary scale, when in fact that item was not applicable to that study. As in the studies by Gómez-Carmona [ 5 ], Reina [ 7 ], Sarmento [ 8 ] and García-Santos [ 10 ], to make a fair comparison between studies with different designs, the percentage score was calculated as a final measure of methodological quality. For this, the sum of the score of all items was divided by the number of relevant scored items for that specific research design.…”

“…In an attempt to simplify the training load quantification, Foster [ 111 ] introduced the use of the session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) instead of using HR data or measuring the intensity of the session, or the type of exercise performed. The sRPE, obtained after the completion of training and/or the match, classifies the general difficulty of the session by multiplying the RPE by the duration of the exercise, in minutes [ 111 ] and, based on the scale of 0 to 10, has been widely used in the evaluation of internal load, both in training and in competition [ 7 , 9 , 10 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 24 , 26 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 39 , 61 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 72 , 74 , 75 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 84 , 85 ]. On the other hand, Coppalle [ 66 ] and Owen [ 86 ] used the 6–20 scale to determine sRPE.…”

“…However, there is currently no consensus as to which variables are most useful or, indeed, how to analyze the longitudinal data of a diverse squad of players [ 2 ]. Reina [ 7 ] reinforces the importance of conducting systematic reviews about training/match monitoring with increasing attention given to this task, and therefore, there are a lot of data to collect and organize.…”