Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a typical in-season week including four practice sessions and one competitive game on strength, jump and sprint performances in national-level female basketball players.
Methods: Nine female basketball players (24.3±4.1 years old, 173.0±7.9 cm, 65.1±10.9 kg, 21.1±3.8% body fat) participated in ten testing sessions, before and immediately after practices and game (five pre- and five post-tests). Each session involved isokinetic peak torque measurements of the quadriceps and hamstrings of the dominant leg at 60º.s-1, countermovement jump (CMJ) and 20-m sprint. Fluid loss and subjective training load were measured during each practice session, while the frequencies of the main movements performed during the game were recorded. A two-way ANOVA was used to asses the effect of each practice/game and the effect of the day of the week on performances, and the relationship between performance variations and variables recorded during practices/game were analyzed by a Pearson correlation coefficient.
Results: Individual sessions induced significant decreases in lower limb strength (from 4.6 to 10.9%, P<0.05), CMJ (12.6% to 19.6%, P<0.05) and 20-m sprint (1.3% to 7.3%, P<0.05). Performances returned to baseline before the subsequent pre-test session, except on day 3.
Conclusion: These impairments in performance highlight that coaches should plan conditioning programmes based on repeated sprint and repeated jump ability, and monitor the recovery of their players' strength, sprint and jump capacities following specific sessions.