THE EFFECT OF HAND IMMERSION ON REPEATED SPRINT PERFORMANCE IN UNIVERSITY SOCCER PLAYERS

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of cold water hand immersion upon repeated sprint performance in pre fatigued soccer players. Following an initial familiarisation session 8 trained male soccer players performed 2 individual testing sessions separated by at least 7 days. Testing required subjects to perform two 15 minute bouts of the Loughborough Intermittent Shuttle Test (LIST) to act as soccer simulation, before entering a 10 minute recovery period were subjects either immersed their hand in 10°C water or recovered passively. Upon completion of the recovery period subjects were required to perform a fostec repeated sprint test of 8 x 40m going on 30 seconds. All 8 subjects completed the protocol with the cold water hand immersion and without, although testing was completed in a randomized fashion so as to minimise any placebo effect. Measures of sprint time, heart rate, tympanic temperature and perceived thermal sensation were obtained. Under the cooling condition there were no significant differences (p> 0.05) in terms of repeated sprint performance, however data collected for heart rate , tympanic temperature and perceived thermal sensation were significantly lower (p< 0.05). The results suggest that 10 minutes of hand immersion in 10°C water does not improve repeated sprint performance in pre fatigued soccer players although perception of thermal load was reduced.