Fatigue and Recovery in Football

Abstract

In professional football, players are generally expected to participate in more matches than before. Therefore, they may occasionally fail to show their best physical performance. Due to intense match schedules; to reduce post-match fatigue to optimize performance as quickly as possible and to minimize the risk of injury appropriate recovery strategies are necessitated. Football requires some activities such as sprinting, changing direction, jumping, grabbing the ball as well as technical skills for example dribbling, passing, shooting the ball. All of these activities are resulted with fatigue with a combination of dehydration, deprivation of the glycogen storage, muscle injury and mental exhaustion. The amount of fatigue depends on many internal and/or external factors and influences recovery process. In football, recovery strategies are complex and many of the proposed methods are still controversial. Sleep, hydration, diet and cold water applications are the most evident strategies. Further studies are needed to clarify the factors those leading to and determining the level of fatigue, thus implementing effective and individualized recovery strategies. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]