Minutes Played Should be Used for the Calculation of Session Rating of Perceived Exertion During Matches in NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer

Abstract

Introduction: Monitoring Training Load in soccer is used to achieve the best individualized performance outcomes and to prevent injuries. However, there is no clear recommendation for which ‘match duration’ should be used in the calculation of match Session Rating of Perceived Exertion Training Load (sRPE-TL) in NCAA DI women’s soccer. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to establish a duration standard to be used in the calculation of sRPE-TL in collegiate NCAA DI women’s soccer matches. A secondary aim was to investigate whether multiple positions require the use of different durations for the calculation of sRPE-TL. Methods:  Seventeen athletes (means ± standard deviations: age 20 ± 1.1 yrs., height 170 ± 6.6 cm, weight 64.6 ± 7.0 kg) participated in this study. Repeated measures correlations were used to determine the relationship between the different sRPE-TL calculations and objective variables (e.g., GPS variables and HR-based variable). Data was analyzed using the rmcorr package in R Studio executing R. Alpha was set a-priori at p ≤ 0.05. Results: The s-RPE-TL using the four ‘minutes played’ durations (‘minutes played only’, ‘warm-up added’, ‘halftime added’, and ‘warm-up and halftime added’) were strongly correlated with TLS (r = .773, .776, .789, .786), total distance (r = .825, .813, .811, .798), number of sprints (r = .716, .717, .712, .711), HSD (r = .608, .615, .609, .612), and mechanical load (r = .738, .738, .734, .732). When separated by positions, the correlations between sRPE-TL and objective data were similar across all four ‘minutes played’ durations. Conclusions: Any of the ‘minutes played’ durations should be used to calculate match sRPE-TL values for the entire team. Multiple positions do not require the use of different durations for the calculation of sRPE-TL which facilitates sRPE-TL comparisons across positions.