INTRODUCTION: To best prepare players for team sport games such as elite team handball, it is paramount to understand the physical load and the position specific differences. The investigation of physical load in team sports have mainly been focusing on traditional tracking variables, such as distance in various speed zones and number of accelerations (Povoas et al., 2012; Manchado et al., 2021). To better understand the underlying mechanisms of specific intense actions, this study aims at describing the characteristics of various specific intense actions during top-level team handball games. METHODS: Specific intense actions (sprints (>22 km/h), accelerations, decelerations, change of direction (CoD) and jumps) were extracted from 30 male top-level handball players (height: 193±5 cm, weight: 98±10 kg) during 6 handball matches. A total of 4300 specific intense actions - 418 sprints, 1669 accelerations, 1108 decelerations, 269 changes of directions, and 836 jumps were investigated. Participants were divided into three playing positions: pivot, back, and wing for investigating positional differences. Data were analyzed using a linear regression model. To adjust for multiple comparisons, Tukey`s post hoc test was used. A significance level of 0.05 was chosen. RESULTS: On all measured parameters, backs and pivots only differed in jumping height (0.21±0.18 m and 0.17±0.18 m respectively; P<0.001) and jumping distance (1.31±0.91 m and 1.26±0.92 m, respectively; P<0.05). During sprints, wings covered 14.7±5.0 m per sprint which was more (P<0.001) than both pivots (10.5±2.6 m) and backs (10.6±3.7 m). Pivots displayed lower magnitude of deceleration (1.4±0.6 m/s2) than both wings (2.1±0.8 m/s2; P<0.001) and backs (1.8±0.8 m/s2; P<0.05), and wings also showed greater magnitude of deceleration than backs (P<0.05). In contrast, no differences were observed between positions of magnitude of acceleration during CoD. During accelerations wings displayed longer duration (1.1±0.3 s) compared to both pivots (1.0±0.3 s; P<0.001) and backs (0.9±0.2 s; P<0.001). Additionally, pivots also displayed longer duration than backs (P<0.001). Maximum acceleration was higher in wings (2.9±0.5 m/s2) compared to pivots (2.6±0.4 m/s2; P<0.001) and backs (2.6±0.4 m/s2; P<0.001), but with no difference between pivots and backs. CONCLUSION: Analysis of 4300 specific intense actions revealed great positional differences during top-level team handball matches, but with large variation of most parameters. Investigation of specific intense actions beyond traditional tracking variables reveal new insides to the demand of handball.
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