The Goal Scale: A New Instrument to Measure the Perceived Exertion in Soccer (Indoor, Field, and Beach) Players

Luis Felipe Tubagi Polito; Marcelo Luis Marquezi; Douglas Popp Marin; Marcelo Villas Boas Junior; Maria Regina Ferreira Brandão

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.623480

The Goal Scale: A New Instrument to Measure the Perceived Exertion in Soccer (Indoor, Field, and Beach) Players

Front Psychol. 2021 Jan 7:11:623480. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.623480. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Luis Felipe Tubagi Polito¹, Marcelo Luis Marquezi², Douglas Popp Marin³, Marcelo Villas Boas Junior¹, Maria Regina Ferreira Brandão¹

Affiliations

¹ Post-graduate Program in Physical Education, São Judas Tadeu University, São Paulo, Brazil.
² Physical Education Research Laboratory, Universidade Cidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
³ Physical Education School, Methodist University of São Paulo, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil.

Abstract

The rating of perceived exertion (RPE) can be used to monitor the exercise intensity during laboratory and specific tests, training sessions, and to estimate the internal training load of the athletes. The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a specific pictorial perceived exertion scale for soccer players (indoor, field, and beach soccer) called GOAL Scale. The pictorial GOAL Scale (six drawings; 1 "low exertion" to 6 "exhaustion") was validated for twenty under-17 soccer players (16.4 ± 0.68 years; 175.4 ± 9 cm; 66.4 ± 7.7 kg; % fat mass 12.4 ± 3.3). In the validation phase, the athletes were evaluated in a progressive protocol involving stimuluses of 3 min with 1 min for the rest into the stages until the voluntary exhaustion in Maximal Cardiopulmonary Effort Test (MCET), and in the Yo Yo Intermittent Recovery Test - Level 1 (Yo-Yo). The RPE identified by the GOL Scale, by the Borg Scale 6 - 20 and by the Cavasini Scale, as well as the heart rate (HR), perceptual of the heart rate (%HR_max) and the blood lactate concentration ([La]) were immediately evaluated after each stage of both tests. Spearman's correlation coefficient (p < 0.05) was used. Construct scale validity was examined by regressing GOAL Scale against Borg Scale 6 - 20 and Cavasini Scale and concurrent scale validity was investigated by regressing GOAL Scale against HR, beats/min and blood lactate concentration (mmol/L) during two progressive tests. There was a significant correlation values of the GOAL Scale with Borg Scale (r = 0.93; r = 0.88), Cavasini Scale (r = 0.91; r = 0.90), %HR_max (r = 0.91; r = 0,86), HR (r = 0.87; r = 0.83) and lactate (r = 0.68; r = 0.83) during tests (Maximal Incremental Cardiopulmonary Test and Yo-Yo test, respectively). The results evidenced concurrent and construct validity of the GOAL Scale across a wide range of exercise intensity. The absence of verbal anchors makes the use of this instrument to soccer, futsal and beach soccer athletes of different languages and different literacy levels possible.

Keywords: athletic performance; differentiated RPE; effort; fatigue; psychophysiology.