Billaut, Francois, Bishop, David, Schaerz, Simon and Noakes, Timothy (2011) Influence of knowledge of sprint number on pacing during repeated-sprint exercise. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 43 (4). pp. 665-672. ISSN 1530-0315 (online) 0195-9131 (print)

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that pacing strategies are used by athletes during continuous exercise, presumably to delay/attenuate the development of fatigue. The current study demonstrates for the first time that pacing also occurs during repeated all-out sprints interspersed with short recovery intervals and that this pacing is influenced by prior knowledge of the sprint number. From a sport–science perspective, this has important practical implications because tests of repeated-sprint ability that consist of more than five short sprints to determine the effect of an intervention on performance are likely to be affected by pacing. However, given the ‘‘open-loop’’ characteristics of team sports (i.e., a player will not know how many times they will have to sprint during a game), it is difficult to ascertain the degree of pacing team-sport players actually adopt during a game. Although more research is needed to understand the origin and ultimate goal of these self-chosen pacing strategies during exercise of this nature, the current data are in good agreement with the general finding that knowing the exercise characteristics beforehand is an important parameter in the establishment of a pacing strategy during varied types of activity

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