Physiological and performance adaptations from completing preseason in female collegiate soccer players

Ensuring an athlete’s health while developing athletic performance is a key objective of coaches and training staff. Current literature supports the importance of monitoring training load and its effect on athletic performance; however, there is limited research examining the effects in female athletes. Therefore, we sought to examine the effects of training load on performance, cardiovascular function, anthropometry in female collegiate soccer players. Moreover, we aimed to examine the relationships between resting cardiovascular function and performance measures while controlling for anthropometry. The data was analyzed used a Pearson correlation coefficient (r) and multiple regression analysis (R²). Owing to the potential confounding effects of changes in anthropometric indices, body composition (body mass index & body fat percentage) indices were also used as covariates in separate analyses of resting cardiovascular function and physical performance measures. The results yielded several negative correlations between between training load and athletic performance, revealing that sprints had the biggest impact on performance for LRS at 5 metres (r = -0.53, p <0.01), 10 metres (r = -0.54, p <0.01) vertical jump height (r = -0.35, p <0.05) and the YoYo test (r = -0.42, p