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“It’s Important, but It’s Not Everything”: Practitioners’ Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League

A plethora of research exists examining the physical qualities of rugby league players. However, no research has investigated practitioners’ insights into the use, analysis and perceptions of such fitness testing data that is vital for applying research into practice. Therefore, this study aimed to...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: McCormack, Sam, Jones, Ben, Scantlebury, Sean, Rotheram, Dave, Till, Kevin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7552628/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32961849
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports8090130
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author McCormack, Sam
Jones, Ben
Scantlebury, Sean
Rotheram, Dave
Till, Kevin
author_facet McCormack, Sam
Jones, Ben
Scantlebury, Sean
Rotheram, Dave
Till, Kevin
author_sort McCormack, Sam
collection PubMed
description A plethora of research exists examining the physical qualities of rugby league players. However, no research has investigated practitioners’ insights into the use, analysis and perceptions of such fitness testing data that is vital for applying research into practice. Therefore, this study aimed to examine practitioners’ (coaches and strength & conditioning [S&C] coaches) perceptions and challenges of using fitness testing and the development of physical qualities. Twenty-four rugby league practitioners were purposefully sampled and completed a semi-structured interview. Interviews were transcribed and thematically analysed identifying five themes (it’s important, but it’s not everything; monitoring; evaluation and decision making; motivation; and other external challenges). The theme of “it’s important, but it’s not everything” emerged as a fundamental issue with regard fitness testing and the use of such data and that physical data alone does not inform coaches decisions. There appears conflicts between coaches and S&C coaches’ perceptions and use of fitness data, identifying complexities of supporting players in multidisciplinary teams. Collectively, the findings highlight the multifaceted nature of academy rugby league and suggest that practitioners should utilise fitness testing to inform player evaluations, positively influence training and assist with decision making. Moreover, practitioners should understand the combination of factors that influence fitness testing and work collaboratively to enhance talent development strategies.
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spelling pubmed-75526282020-10-14 “It’s Important, but It’s Not Everything”: Practitioners’ Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League McCormack, Sam Jones, Ben Scantlebury, Sean Rotheram, Dave Till, Kevin Sports (Basel) Article A plethora of research exists examining the physical qualities of rugby league players. However, no research has investigated practitioners’ insights into the use, analysis and perceptions of such fitness testing data that is vital for applying research into practice. Therefore, this study aimed to examine practitioners’ (coaches and strength & conditioning [S&C] coaches) perceptions and challenges of using fitness testing and the development of physical qualities. Twenty-four rugby league practitioners were purposefully sampled and completed a semi-structured interview. Interviews were transcribed and thematically analysed identifying five themes (it’s important, but it’s not everything; monitoring; evaluation and decision making; motivation; and other external challenges). The theme of “it’s important, but it’s not everything” emerged as a fundamental issue with regard fitness testing and the use of such data and that physical data alone does not inform coaches decisions. There appears conflicts between coaches and S&C coaches’ perceptions and use of fitness data, identifying complexities of supporting players in multidisciplinary teams. Collectively, the findings highlight the multifaceted nature of academy rugby league and suggest that practitioners should utilise fitness testing to inform player evaluations, positively influence training and assist with decision making. Moreover, practitioners should understand the combination of factors that influence fitness testing and work collaboratively to enhance talent development strategies. MDPI 2020-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7552628/ /pubmed/32961849 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports8090130 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
McCormack, Sam
Jones, Ben
Scantlebury, Sean
Rotheram, Dave
Till, Kevin
“It’s Important, but It’s Not Everything”: Practitioners’ Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League
title “It’s Important, but It’s Not Everything”: Practitioners’ Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League
title_full “It’s Important, but It’s Not Everything”: Practitioners’ Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League
title_fullStr “It’s Important, but It’s Not Everything”: Practitioners’ Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League
title_full_unstemmed “It’s Important, but It’s Not Everything”: Practitioners’ Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League
title_short “It’s Important, but It’s Not Everything”: Practitioners’ Use, Analysis and Perceptions of Fitness Testing in Academy Rugby League
title_sort “it’s important, but it’s not everything”: practitioners’ use, analysis and perceptions of fitness testing in academy rugby league
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7552628/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32961849
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports8090130
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