Investigation of the repeated sprint performance and fatigue index of pubescent girl athletes of different age groups

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the age-related differences in the repeated sprint ability and fatigue index in Turkish girl athletes in puberty. 36 youth girls (11 age group n=13, 12 age group n=16, 13 age group n=7) participated in this study voluntarily. Repeated sprint ability of girls was determined by 7 × 30 m running repeated sprint test with 25 sec active recovery durations. Body composition was measured in terms of height, weight and body mass index. The height values were found to be slightly lower in 11 age group compared to 12 and 13 age groups (p<0.05), but there was no difference between 12 and 13 age groups in height values (p>0.05). There were significant differences among the three groups in weight values (p<0.05). Best sprint time, total sprint time and the repeated sprint decrement/fatigue index were determined for each player. One way analysis of variance indicated significant differences in the best sprint time (F (2.34) = 35.78, p<0.05) and total sprint time (F (2.34) = 21.73, p<0.05) among 11, 12 and 13 age groups. According to the Tukey analysis results, these differences arose from 11 age group for both the best sprint time and total sprint time. No significant difference was observed in fatigue index among the three groups (p>0.05). Our results indicated that the repeated sprint ability, and fatigue index are independent from age and other variables such as height, weight and body mass index, while the best sprint time and total sprint time improve with age