I was lucky enough to be accepted
to present a poster at the BASES Student Conference 2017. The topic of the poster was that of my final year
dissertation project for my undergraduate degree course. It surrounded the use of GPS devices to
identify position specific activity profiles in professional football, and
whether the final match outcome had an effect on individual positional activity. This blog is a reflection on the whole
experience, and what I have taken from it.
My research project began during
an internship at a professional football club competing in the Sky Bet English
Football League Two. The team had just
invested in the use of GPS devices to measure game and training loads. I thought that this would make quite an
interesting project so I asked my supervisor if it would be possible to gain
access to the data that was to be collected.
After getting clearance from the management team to release the data, I
was granted permission to use it. This
made me feel validated as an intern because the staff had confidence in my
ability to use and interpret the collected data. As the use of GPS technology in sport is ever
increasing, I also thought that this would be an ideal opportunity for me to
gain a good understanding of this technology using real-life data and that this
experience could really add to my skill set and experience.
The lead sport scientist at the
club was using GPS to collect both training and match data. I thought, to make things a little easier for
myself, I would use only data collected from competitive matches for my
project. My theory was that this would
enable me to develop an understanding of the physical demands placed on the
players during competition. This could
be useful in identifying the physical needs of these players based on their position
which could further help optimize the individualisation of football player
training.
After carrying out my own research
into the use of GPS in team sports, it became obvious to me that the total
distance covered was not really representative of the actual demands of the
game, and that more relevant information concerned high speed distance
travelled and accelerations and decelerations performed. This research process really helped me
develop a good understanding of what data I could use to maximize the benefit of
using the device, while also developing my confidence in identifying key areas
of physical performance. I therefore,
decided to look at high speed distance, sprint distance and accelerations/decelerations
performed by each position and to examine whether these metrics changed
according to the final outcome of the match (win, lose or draw).
I inputted all collected data
into a custom spreadsheet that I designed using Microsoft Excel. Once the data were organized I then inputted
into SPSS to run the relevant statistical tests. I chose to perform a one way analysis of
variance to compare the previous mention metrics with each position, then a two
way analysis of variance to compare metrics against position and final match
outcome. A problem that I encountered
here was that for nearly every test I ran, Lavene’s test of variance failed
(indicating the high variance in values between the groups of data) which meant
that my F-ratio (the
statistic used to test if the
means are significantly different from one another) would be invalid. On researching an alternative method, it was established
that there were two options; a Welch’s F or Brown-Forsythe. A Welch’s F was the chosen method as this
test has been shown to be more powerful in detecting an effect when it exists. This initially left me feeling quite
frustrated at the fact that the results were not panning out the way I hoped,
but when the alternative was established I felt relieved and a sense of
accomplishment, and also gave me an opportunity to revisit my statistics to
help improve my knowledge in this area.
The key points that I was able
to take from my research project were:
- Central Midfielders covered the greatest total distance while Centre Backs covered the least.
- Forwards are exposed to increased high intensity and sprint distance compared to other positions
- High intensity distance and sprint distance covered shows little variation between Full Backs, Central Midfielders and Wide Midfielders players
- Full Backs and Wide Midfield players performed the highest amounts of accelerations and decelerations although displayed a high variability.
The BASES Student Conference was held at the University of
St Mark & St John, Plymouth. It was
a two day event with some very interesting key note speakers. One of which I found particularly interesting
was Professor Andy Jones who spoke about the role of dietary nitrate in
enhancing nitric oxide production and in modulating blood pressure, blood flow,
and muscle efficiency and performance. I
presented my poster on day two. This
allowed me to experience the first day and observe some of the other posters
that students had produced. I felt more
relaxed after this as I knew what to expect when presenting my own. This also gave me the opportunity to talk to
other students about their work which I feel I gained a lot of benefit from. For example there were two students
presenting on the use of the acute chronic workload ratio to quantify training
loads in football, and also one student presenting on Bio-Banding in football
academies (a topic of one of my previous blog posts click here).
When presenting my poster I had a
lot of interest from other students taking the time out to ask about my
project. This filled me with a lot of
confidence as the feedback that I was getting was very positive. People were most interested in the break down
of metrics for each position, and how this could be used to influence a host of
areas such as individualised training, return to play measures or specific
testing for individual positions. The
fact that I had worked on the project from so long gave me a lot of confidence
in delivering the presentation, and this left me feeling very proud of my achievement
and the fact that I had used real life
data made me feel relevant in that this could positively contribute to the
professional sporting environment.
I was left feeling extremely
proud of my self and of the hard work that I had put in. This was further elevated when I was informed
that my poster abstract is now going to be published in an online graduate journal. I genuinely believe that this whole process
has really developed me as a sport scientist and helped me acquire skills that
can be really important in the professional sporting environment such as
collecting data, interpreting data and presenting it in an understandable way. My final poster presentation can be viewed here. To read my published abstract in the Graduate Journal of Sport, Exercise & Physical Education Research, click here. (page 59).
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