Original articles  EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOMECHANICS 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2002 December;42(3):409-17

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

External mechanical work versus oxidative energy consumption ratio during a basketball field test

Crisafulli A. ¹, Melis F. ¹, Tocco F. ², Laconi P. ¹, Lai C. ¹, Concu A. ¹

¹ Interdepartmental Center for the Technologies and the Environments Linked to Sport (CITAS) University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy 2 Department of Sciences Applied to Biosystems, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy

Background. A ­field ­test con­sist­ing of 5 con­tin­u­ous ­runs at the max­i­mum ­speed pos­sible, play­ing the ­ball, start­ing ­from the cen­tre ­line to the bas­ket ­with a ­final ­shot, was stud­ied in ­order to ­obtain an ­index of mechan­i­cal ­work effi­cien­cy in bas­ket­ball ­players (µ­index=Jmec/Joxy) and eval­u­ate the cor­re­la­tion ­between µ­index and veloc­ity, accel­er­a­tion, mechan­i­cal pow­er and lac­tac­id anaer­o­bic capac­ity, respec­tive­ly.
Methods. Eight ­male bas­ket­ball ­players ­were stud­ied; Jmec was the exter­nal mechan­i­cal ­work out­put ­obtained by ­means of a vid­eo ­image anal­y­sis soft­ware ­which ­gave the poten­tial and the kinet­ic trans­la­tion­al ener­gies of ath­letes run­ning and jump­ing and ­their veloc­ity, accel­er­a­tion and mechan­i­cal pow­er. By ­means of a tele­met­ric ­device (Kosmed K4), for meas­ur­ing O2 con­sump­tion (˙VO2), we ­obtained oxi­da­tive ­work (Joxy). By ­using ­this ­device we ­also ­assessed the ­excess of CO2, ­which was con­sid­ered an ­index of lac­tac­id anaer­o­bic capac­ity.
Results. Non-par­a­met­ric Spearman sta­tis­tics ­revealed a sig­nif­i­cant cor­re­la­tion ­between µ­index and ­mean veloc­ity (p<0.01, r=0.90), accel­er­a­tion (p<0.05, r=0.78), mechan­i­cal pow­er (p<0.05 r=0.76) and CO2 ­excess (p<0.01, r=0.95). Consequently ath­letes who had the ­best ­index of mechan­i­cal effi­cien­cy ­also had the ­best bio­me­chan­i­cal qual­ity and the great­est lac­tac­id anaer­o­bic capac­ity.
Conclusions. This ­study strong­ly sup­ports the hypoth­e­sis ­that in bas­ket­ball anaer­o­bic capac­ity is impor­tant in achiev­ing ­high val­ues of ­speed, accel­er­a­tion, mechan­i­cal pow­er and endu­rance veloc­ity.