Gaelic Football Match-Play: Performance Attenuation and Timeline of Recovery

Abstract

This study investigated acute changes in markers of fatigue and performance attenuation during and following a competitive senior club-level Gaelic football match. Forty-one players were tested immediately pre-match, at half-time, full-time, 24 h post-match and 48 h post-match. Creatine kinase, drop jump height and contact-time, reactive strength index, countermovement jump height and perceptual responses were assessed at the aforementioned time-points. 18 Hz global positioning system devices were used to record players in-game workload measures. Compared to pre-match, perceptual responses (−27.6%) and countermovement jump height (−3.9%) were significantly reduced at full-time (p p p p p p < 0.05). These results demonstrate that Gaelic football match-play elicits substantial neuromuscular, biochemical and perceptual disturbances.

Keywords

• Gaelic football
• fatigue
• post match
• muscle damage
• countermovement jump
• recovery