Effects of post warm-up short-term inactivity on physical and physiological parameters in female elite team handball players

Abstract

In team handball, coaches can make unlimited substitutions, allowing players to enter the game at any time, even if they haven't been active on the bench. The aim of this study was to investi-gate the impact of inactivity following a warm-up on the physical performance and physiologi-cal responses of female elite team handball players. The secondary aim of the study was to ex-amine a possible connection between the examined parameters. Twelve female adult elite field handball players (n = 12; age, 31.9 ± 4.05 years; weight, 66.1 ± 5.8 kg; height 173 ± 3.8 cm and body mass index, 2.2 ± 0.2 kg/cm2) were examined. All tests were assessed in two distinct situations: (a) immediately after warm-up (T1-AW) and (b) after a 15-minute inactivity period (T2-IP). The physical tests performed were: countermovement jump with arms fixed (CMJ AF), squat jump (SJ), medicinal ball rotational throw test right (MBTT-R) and medicinal ball rotational throw test left (MBTT-L) and 10 m acceleration test (TA 10m). Heart rate (HR) was measured during warm-up and at T2-IP, while body temperature (BT), lactic acid (LA), serum glucose (G), and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) were measured at T1-AW and T2-IP. Significant differences were found at T2-IP for RSI1 (t= 2.88, p < 0.01) and PP (t= 2.24, p < 0.05), specific to CMJ AF and RSI1 (t= 3.88, p < 0.01), and for PP specific to SJ (t= 2.28, p < 0.05). All physical indices correlated positively with the physiological ones. In addition, two significant correlations were identified, one be-tween the decrease in the RSI 1-CMJ AF index and the PP-CMJ AF index (r=0.59, p<0.05) and an-other between the decline in the PP- SJ and Tc (r=0.60, p<0.05). The results obtained from the pre-sent study indicate that short-term inactivity can negate some of the physical and physiological benefits that players gain from warming up. The study revealed a significant reduction in certain parameters related to jump tests after a 15-minute period of inactivity. Moreover, it was ob-served that there is a direct correlation between the decrease in body temperature and the reduc-tion in peak power specific to squat jump performance. This implies that lower body tempera-tures that result from a short period of inactivity can have a negative impact on jumping per-formance just before players enter the game.

Keywords

• female team handball
• warm-up
• inactivity
• physical performances
• physiological parameters