Monitoring and managing fatigue in basketball

Abstract

The sport of basketball exposes athletes to frequent high intensity movements including sprinting, jumping, accelerations, decelerations and changes of direction during training and competition which can lead to acute and accumulated chronic fatigue. Fatigue may affect the ability of the athlete to perform over the course of a lengthy season. The ability of practitioners to quantify the workload and subsequent fatigue in basketball athletes in order to monitor and manage fatigue levels may be beneficial in maintaining high levels of performance and preventing unfavorable physical and physiological training adaptations. There is currently limited research quantifying training or competition workload outside of time motion analysis in basketball. In addition, systematic research investigating methods to monitor and manage athlete fatigue in basketball throughout a season is scarce. To effectively optimize and maintain peak training and playing performance throughout a basketball season, potential workload and fatigue monitoring strategies need to be discussed.