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Physical and Fitness Characteristics of Elite Professional Rugby Union Players
This study explored the physical and fitness characteristics of elite professional rugby union players and examined the relationships between these characteristics within forwards and backs. Thirty-nine elite professional rugby union players from the New Zealand Super Rugby Championship participated...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7353640/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32517080 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports8060085 |
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author | Posthumus, Logan Macgregor, Campbell Winwood, Paul Darry, Katrina Driller, Matthew Gill, Nicholas |
author_facet | Posthumus, Logan Macgregor, Campbell Winwood, Paul Darry, Katrina Driller, Matthew Gill, Nicholas |
author_sort | Posthumus, Logan |
collection | PubMed |
description | This study explored the physical and fitness characteristics of elite professional rugby union players and examined the relationships between these characteristics within forwards and backs. Thirty-nine elite professional rugby union players from the New Zealand Super Rugby Championship participated in this study. Body composition was measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry alongside anthropometrics. Fitness characteristics included various strength, power, speed, and aerobic fitness measures. Forwards were significantly (p ≤ 0.01) taller and heavier than backs, and possessed greater lean mass, fat mass, fat percentage, bone mass, and skinfolds. Forwards demonstrated greater strength and absolute power measures than backs (p = 0.02), but were slower and possessed less aerobic fitness (p ≤ 0.01). Skinfolds demonstrated very large correlations with relative power (r = −0.84) and speed (r = 0.75) measures within forwards, while backs demonstrated large correlations between skinfolds and aerobic fitness (r = −0.54). Fat mass and fat percentage demonstrated very large correlations with speed (r = 0.71) and aerobic fitness (r = −0.70) measures within forwards. Skinfolds, fat mass, and fat percentage relate strongly to key fitness characteristics required for elite professional rugby union performance. Individual and positional monitoring is important due to the clear differences between positions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7353640 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73536402020-07-21 Physical and Fitness Characteristics of Elite Professional Rugby Union Players Posthumus, Logan Macgregor, Campbell Winwood, Paul Darry, Katrina Driller, Matthew Gill, Nicholas Sports (Basel) Article This study explored the physical and fitness characteristics of elite professional rugby union players and examined the relationships between these characteristics within forwards and backs. Thirty-nine elite professional rugby union players from the New Zealand Super Rugby Championship participated in this study. Body composition was measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry alongside anthropometrics. Fitness characteristics included various strength, power, speed, and aerobic fitness measures. Forwards were significantly (p ≤ 0.01) taller and heavier than backs, and possessed greater lean mass, fat mass, fat percentage, bone mass, and skinfolds. Forwards demonstrated greater strength and absolute power measures than backs (p = 0.02), but were slower and possessed less aerobic fitness (p ≤ 0.01). Skinfolds demonstrated very large correlations with relative power (r = −0.84) and speed (r = 0.75) measures within forwards, while backs demonstrated large correlations between skinfolds and aerobic fitness (r = −0.54). Fat mass and fat percentage demonstrated very large correlations with speed (r = 0.71) and aerobic fitness (r = −0.70) measures within forwards. Skinfolds, fat mass, and fat percentage relate strongly to key fitness characteristics required for elite professional rugby union performance. Individual and positional monitoring is important due to the clear differences between positions. MDPI 2020-06-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7353640/ /pubmed/32517080 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports8060085 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Posthumus, Logan Macgregor, Campbell Winwood, Paul Darry, Katrina Driller, Matthew Gill, Nicholas Physical and Fitness Characteristics of Elite Professional Rugby Union Players |
title | Physical and Fitness Characteristics of Elite Professional Rugby Union Players |
title_full | Physical and Fitness Characteristics of Elite Professional Rugby Union Players |
title_fullStr | Physical and Fitness Characteristics of Elite Professional Rugby Union Players |
title_full_unstemmed | Physical and Fitness Characteristics of Elite Professional Rugby Union Players |
title_short | Physical and Fitness Characteristics of Elite Professional Rugby Union Players |
title_sort | physical and fitness characteristics of elite professional rugby union players |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7353640/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32517080 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports8060085 |
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