Recovery time variation during sprint interval training impacts amateur soccer players adaptations – a pilot study

The objective of the present study was to investigate the selected performance adaptations of amateur soccer players to 2 different running-based sprint interval training (SIT) protocols with different recovery intervals and work-rest ratios (1:5 & 1:1). Twenty-three subjects (age 21.4 1.1 years; height 175.4 4.7 cm; body mass 69 6.4 kg) participated in the study. Before the 6-weeks training period, participants completed 3-weeks of low-intensity training preparation. Subsequently, the pre-tests (anthropometric measurements, repeated sprint test [12 20-m with 30-s recovery intervals], Yo-Yo IRT1 & Yo-Yo IRT2 and treadmill VO 2max test) were conducted. Thereafter, participants were randomly divided into 3 sub-groups (1 -SIT with 150 s recovery intervals [SIT150, n = 8]; 2 -SIT with 30 s recovery intervals [SIT30, n = 7]; and 3 -control group [CG, n = 8]). SIT150 and SIT30 training groups completed sprint interval training (2-days/week; 30-s all-out running, 6-10 repetition with 150 s recovery intervals for SIT150 and 30 s for SIT30 groups, respectively), a soccer match (1-day) and routine soccer training (3-days) per week. The CG attended only routine training sessions and the soccer-match (4-days). The study experiments and the trainings were conducted during off-season.