ESTIMATION OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MAXIMAL OXYGEN CONSUMPTION AND REPEATED SPRINT ABILITY OF MALE HANDBALL PLAYERS

Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between maximal oxygen consumption and repeated sprint ability of male university handball players. Twenty seven (27) male university handball players were selected from Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Annamalai University, who voluntarily participated in this study (age: 21.62 ± 1.90 years; height: 172.07 ± 7.25 cm; body weight: 64.59 ± 9.92 kg). Multistage 20 m shuttle run test was used for the estimation of maximal oxygen uptake and total distance covered. Repeated sprint ability was measured by 7×30 meters sprint with 25 second recovery. The results of product moment correlation analysis showed significant correlation between maximal oxygen consumption with fatigue index (r = 0.965, p = 0.000), fast sprint time (r = 0.772, p = 0.000), slowest sprint time (r = 0.875, p = 0.000) and mean sprint time (r = 0.807, p = 0.000). The findings of the present study indicated significant negative correlation among maximal oxygen consumption and repeated sprint ability of male handball players. This clearly shows that players with greater aerobic capacity will have better repeated sprint ability