Use of Heart Rate Monitoring to Manage Training Loads and Assess Injury Risk in Male University Soccer Players

Abstract

Introduction: Injuries are a common occurrence in team sports and have negative consequences on team success. As sudden increases and decreases in training loads increase injury likelihood, monitoring training loads is essential. The acute:chronic workload ratio has been established as a useful tool for identifying periods of increased injury likelihood. Markers such as the session Rating of Perceived Exertion (sRPE) and GPS-based indices are commonly used variables when calculating acute:chronic workload ratios. To date no work has been presented involving heart rate-based measurements. The goal of this research project was to investigate the use of heart rate monitoring to manage training loads and assess injury likelihood in university soccer players. Methods: Training load measures from fourteen university male soccer players were collected over a period of seven weeks. Three heart-rate based measurements were monitored including Bannister’s TRIMP, Morton’s TRIMP and Stagno TRIMP. sRPEs were also measured and acute:chronic workload ratios were calculated for each monitored variable. A total of 256 individual training observations were collected from 22 training sessions with a mean duration of 85 minutes. Results: Results demonstrated that using the acute:chronic workload ratio for heart rate-based training loads such as Bannister’s Training Impulse accurately explained variation in injury likelihood (R2 =0.86-0.89). Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that monitoring of acute:chronic workload ratios using HR indices such as Bannister’s TRIMP or Stagno TRIMP appears to be a practical method to assess injury likelihood in male university soccer players.