Search

There is limited research on female football players, especially related to their physical and cognitive performance under different climactic conditions. We analyzed the impact of a hot environmental temperature on physical performance and anticipation in elite female football players during a fatigue‐inducing intermittent protocol. Elite female players (n = 21) performed the countermovement jump (CMJ) and responded to filmed sequences of offensive play under two distinct environmental temperatures (i.e., mild environment temperature‐ 20°C and 30% rh versus hot environment temperature‐ 38°C and 80% rh), interspersed by 1‐week interval. Linear mixed models were used. CMJ performance declined following the intermittent protocol on both temperature conditions (p < 0.05). Moreover, there were significant main effects for protocol on CMJ speed (m/s) (p = 0.001; ηp2 = 0.12), CMJ power (p = 0.002; ηp2 = 0.11), and CMJ Heightmax (p = 0.002; ηp2 = 0.12). After performing the intermittent protocol, exposure to a hot temperature caused a greater decline in anticipation accuracy (mild temperature = 64.41% vs. hot temperature = 53.44%; p < 0.001). Our study shows impaired performance in elite female football players following an intermittent protocol under hot compared with mild environmental conditions. We report decreased performance in both CMJ and anticipation performance under hotter conditions. The results reveal that exposure to hot temperatures had a negative effect on the accuracy of their anticipatory behaviors. We consider the implication of the work for research and training interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We systematically reviewed the effect of ambient temperature on football players' performance during a footballspecific fatigue protocol. Data sources: Cochrane Library, PubMed, Scopus, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science. Eligibility criteria followed the P.I.C.O.S. approach: (i) Healthy football players regardless of sex, age, or competitive level; (ii) football-specific fatigue-inducing protocol followed by assessment of anticipatory judgments, under controlled temperature conditions; (iii) Comparison groups using a different temperature during the foot-ball-specific fatigueinducing protocols; (iv) Outcomes included measures of anticipation, and/or physical or physiological tests; (v) No limitations regarding study design, if (ii) and (iii) were present. The searches resulted in 1,289 titles. However, none of the articles met the P.I.C.O.S. adopted, resulting in a total of zero eligible articles for the systematic review. Therefore, from a critical review of the existing literature, it must be concluded that evidence bases of sufficient scientific quality for the understanding the effect of temperature on physical and physiological demands and anticipatory judgments of football players is simply lacking. This should strongly motivate the scientific community to engage in research on the topic, to test if theoretical assumptions are accurate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]