During our pre-season, we’ve played a few high-quality friendly games against teams like Red Star Belgrade (Serbia) and Volyn Lutsk (Ukrainia). Each player had a Polar Team system equipment on during the games in order for us to record the intensity of the physical load.
DEFENDER Average heart rate: 156 or 82% of maximal heart rate (190 bpm)
DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDER Average heart rate: 159 or 86% of maximal heart rate (184 bpm)
FORWARD Average heart rate: 160 or 85,6% of maximal heart rate (187 bpm)
The data are consistent with the findings mentioned in the article Physiology of Soccer – an update where the authors write that ” the average work intensity, measured as percentage of maximal heart rate, during a 90-minute soccer match is close to the anaerobic threshold (the highest exercise intensity where the production and removal of lactate is equal; normally between 80-90% of HRmax in soccer players).
It is absolutely clear that Soccer is an Endurance based sport with numerous, short bursts of high-intensity actions.
The HRmax of our players was measured during a Shuttle Test (20m) in the first days of pre-season practice.
