Cardiocirculatory Stress in Professional Football (Soccer) Coaches.

It was intended to quantify cardiocirculatory stress and risk of professional football (soccer) coaches during competition. Descriptive cross-sectional study. Medical screening examination and measurements during match. Seventeen coaches and 11 assistant coaches of the 2 highest German football leagues (male coaches; 46 ± 7 years; 8 ± 7 years in job). Professional football matches with highly competitive character were chosen and monitored for elicited cardiocirculatory stress and possible damage. Indicators of general health status, occurrence of arrhythmias, and course of heart rate and cardiac biomarkers (brain natriuretic peptide [BNP], troponin I) during the match. Besides a few preexisting cardiovascular diseases, medical screening revealed a risk factor profile similar to the general population and above-average maximal/submaximal cycle ergometry performance: Pmax 2.9 ± 0.5 W*kg-1; PWC130 1.9 ± 0.5 W*kg-1. No match-induced changes were detected for BNP (20.5 ± 9.4 to 19.7 ± 10.7 pg/mL; P = 0.48) and troponin I (12.6 ± 16.5 to 10.5 ± 14.1 ng/L; P = 0.31). Maximal heart rate during the first and second half was 127 ± 15 and 132 ± 19 beats per minute, respectively. No match-induced arrhythmias of higher degree were detected. Head and assistant coaches of German professional football teams do not show any match-induced cardiac damage, despite considerable cardiocirculatory stress. Possibly, their above-average fitness level saves them from more detrimental outcomes. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

Citation

Tim Meyer, Vera Demond, Jürgen Scharhag. Cardiocirculatory Stress in Professional Football (Soccer) Coaches. Clinical journal of sport medicine : official journal of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine. 2022 Jul 01;32(4):414-417

Mesh Tags

Substances

PMID: 35762864

search → result