Introduction: Basketball is a popular sport that has been studied extensively to determine player position and game profiles and factors related to injury risk and performance. However, no research has developed or used a comprehensive field-based protocol, designed to simulate game-like effort using basketball specific drills, for the assessment of relevant physiological outputs. The objective of this project, therefore, was to develop a repeatable basketball-specific field-based work protocol (Basketball-20) designed to simulate game-like effort and conditions for the assessment of physiological outputs in basketball athletes. Methods: Heart rate (HR), oxygen consumption (VO2 ), and respiratory exchange ratio (RER) were determined while 10 male participants performed steady state running and basketball specific drills during the Basketball-20 on 3 separate days. Results: Overall, the cohort performed the Basketball-20 at an average HR of 85% and average VO2 of 77% of maximum. There were no significant between-day differences in any physiological variables. Measurements for consistency (ICC R-values) and the Technical Error of Measurement (TEM) for physiological variables ranged from 0.66 to 0.98 and 1.4% to 3.6%, respectively. Conclusions: It can be concluded that the Basketball-20 is: (1) physiologically relevant to the game of basketball; (2) reliable and accurate for repeated between-day measures and; (3) appropriate for testing the effects of an intervention on basketball performance across different days. A larger implication is that, because this study has established that it is possible to create a game-like, relevant and reliable protocol for testing athlete performance in a complex team sport, it is reasonable to postulate that similar protocols could be developed in a range of sports.
© Copyright 2015 Journal of Fitness Research. Australian Institute of Fitness. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.