A good VO2 max is no use if your muscles are riddled with lactic acid and your body starts shutting down. These intervals will force you to train at or slightly above your lactate threshold , and as a result you will increase the intensity at which it will occur in a match situation.
The five-a-side sessions also tick all the boxes. They combine these short, sharp, sprints with multidirectional movement, football skills and a match situation, which will all sharpen you up for the first game of the new season.
Increase the intensity. Sprint for 45 seconds then jog gently for 2min 15sec for eight sets in total. This gets your body used to game-specific sprints and movements.
For both the shuttles and clock drill you want to keep the quality high. Run with good form, concentrate on staying agile, turning sharply and accelerating powerfully.
Heart rate and GPS variables were compared between the high- and low-fitness groups using an independent samples t-test. Data for both cognitive tests, across all time points, for the exercise and control trials are displayed in Table 3.
An overview of the results of the statistical analyses is displayed in supplementary Table 1. Congruent Stroop test response times across the exercise and resting trials for the low-fit a and high-fit b groups.
Incongruent Level. Serum BDNF concentration was similar between the high- and low-fit groups main effect of fitness; high-fit: The findings of the present study show that acute Football activity did not influence subsequent information processing, inhibitory control and working memory response times for this group of adolescents overall. However, response times for the high-fit group were quicker across all levels of cognitive tasks, compared to the low-fit group.
The present study is also the first to measure the time course of BDNF post-exercise in an adolescent population, with serum BDNF unaffected by acute Football activity and fitness. The current study demonstrates that response times, during information processing, inhibitory control and working memory tasks, are quicker in adolescents with a higher physical fitness, when compared to their low-fit counterparts.
This is in support of recent meta-analyses in children and adolescents demonstrating that chronic exercise interventions, which aim to improve physical fitness, lead to improvements in cognitive function [ 49 , 50 ]. The findings of the present study extends previous cross-sectional findings in children [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ] and adults [ 25 , 32 ] to three distinct domains of cognitive function information processing, inhibitory control and working memory in adolescents.
Response times were consistently quicker in the high-fit group across the congruent and incongruent levels of the Stroop Task, as well as across all three levels of the Sternberg Paradigm, compared to the low-fit group.
This enhanced cognition in high-fit adolescents may explain the improved academic performance in high-fit young people that has previously been reported [ 28 , 51 , 52 ] The findings of the current study, along with previous work, highlight the importance of high levels of physical fitness for cognitive function and academic achievement in children and adolescents.
The current study also demonstrates that the acute benefits to working memory following exercise were exclusive to the high-fit group only. This is an important finding, given that physical fitness is suggested as a key moderator of the exercise-cognition relationship [ 1 , 4 ], yet there are few empirical studies directly investigating this, especially in adolescents.
Even though the modality and duration of exercise are vastly different, both studies concluded that the improvement in cognition, following an acute bout of exercise, was enhanced in those considered high-fit; in line with the findings of the present study. It is possible that for the low-fit children the exercise was of too high an intensity and thus too demanding.
A recent review suggests that enhancements in cognitive function, following exercise, tend to occur under moderate intensities with attenuated effects under light- and high-intensities; which is consistent with an inverted-U theory [ 4 ]. An additional explanation might be under the transient hypofrontality hypothesis, whereby neural activity in the brain — mainly the prefrontal cortex — is reduced as a result of very high-intensity exercise [ 53 ].
The present study also provides novel evidence regarding the effects of Football on subsequent cognitive function particularly working memory in adolescents, with only one previous studying investigating the acute effects of Football [ 24 ].
The majority of previous work in adolescents has used traditional forms of exercise; such as continuous running [ 6 , 7 , 19 , 20 ], walking [ 8 ] and cycling [ 9 , 11 , 12 ]. Whilst traditional exercise protocols are easy to control in a laboratory setting, they do not necessarily reflect the habitual activity patterns of young people [ 21 ].
The use of Football may provide an attractive model; viable for adolescents and thus has real-world applicability. Whilst the cognitive benefits following Football were exclusive to high-fit individuals and the domain of working memory in the present study, there was also no evidence of a decline in performance for the low-fit participants because of exercise.
This suggests that games-based exercise, such as Football, can still be a valid mode of activity for young people, given the known health benefits [ 54 ], the popularity [ 46 ] and the ease of access to the equipment needed. The present study is the first to examine the time-course of circulating BDNF in adolescents following an acute bout of exercise.
This is an important knowledge gap, given the potential mediating role of BDNF in the exercise-cognition relationship [ 31 , 33 , 55 ] and the transient nature of improvements seen in cognitive function following exercise. Whilst peripheral BDNF increases immediately after acute bouts of exercise in adults [ 55 , 56 ], data from the current study did not provide evidence of this effect in adolescents.
The post-exercise increase in BDNF is positively associated with the intensity and duration of the exercise bout [ 55 ]. The exercise bout in the current study was of a sufficient duration, however the intensity may not have been sufficient enough to elicit increases in BDNF post-exercise. The present study did however demonstrate cognitive improvements post-exercise, despite the lack of change in peripheral BDNF.
This may be explained by the fact that central BDNF in the brain was not measured in the present study, due to the constraints of such an assessment in adolescents, and arguably central BDNF is more important for the cognitive benefits of exercise. The improvements in response times seen in the present study, without any noticeable change in peripheral BDNF, may be explained by this or suggest that another mechanism is mediating these cognitive benefits.
A potential limitation of the present study is that the socioeconomic status of the participants was not accounted for. It has been reported that socioeconomic status is implicated in the development of attentional processes in young children [ 57 ] and executive function throughout childhood and adolescence [ 58 ]. However, there is evidence suggesting that a lower socioeconomic status is associated with lower levels of physical activity [ 59 ] and physical fitness [ 60 ] in adolescents; which suggests that the effect of socioeconomic status on cognitive function may, in part, be mediated through physical activity and physical fitness.
The relationship between physical fitness and cognitive function in the present study is cross-sectional and thus, causation cannot be attributed. However, this is still an important finding as this relationship was evident across all test levels for both the Stroop test and the Sternberg paradigm.
Whilst the number of trials used in both the Stroop and Sternberg tests could be seen as a limitation, it was necessary to reduce the amount in order to facilitate the use of both tests within a realistic timeframe. The choice of control condition seated rest in the present study could also be seen as a potential limitation, particularly as the exercise session included both physical and cognitive elements.
However, it would be difficult to match the social interactions of the exercise session and the use of such a control condition also offers ecological validity. A further potential limitation is the measurement of global response time rather than reaction time and movement time separately , due to the practicalities of conducting such measurements in field-based studies of this nature.
Overall, the findings of the present study show that high-fit participants performed better across tests of information processing, inhibitory control and all levels of working memory tasks compared to the low-fit group. In addition, the current study also provides novel evidence supporting physical fitness as a moderator of the exercise-cognition relationship. Overall, these findings suggest that physical fitness is an important determinant of cognitive performance in adolescents; and that acute bouts of exercise, appropriate to the fitness levels of the young people, can also enhance subsequent cognition.
The effects of acute exercise on cognitive performance: a meta-analysis. Brain Res. The relationship between physical activity and cognition in children: a meta-analysis. Pediatr Exerc Sci. Google Scholar. Acute effects of moderate aerobic exercise on specific aspects of executive function in different age and fitness groups: a meta-analysis. PubMed Google Scholar. A primer on investigating the after effects of acute bouts of physical activity on cognition.
Psychol Sport Exerc. A review of factors affecting the acute exercise-cognition relationship in children and adolescents. Acute effect of vigorous aerobic exercise on the inhibitory control in adolescents. Rev Paul Pediatr. Acute effects of 30 minutes resistance and aerobic exercise on cognition in a high school sample.
Res Q Exerc Sport. Executive function during and after acute moderate aerobic exercise in adolescents. Acute physical exercise improves shifting in adolescents at school: evidence for a dopaminergic contribution. Front Behav Neurosci. Steroid hormones in the saliva of adolescents after different exercise intensities and their influence on working memory in a school setting.
The interactive effects of physical fitness and acute aerobic exercise on electrophysiological coherence and cognitive performance in adolescents. Exp Brain Res. Physical fitness, but not acute exercise modulates event-related potential indices for executive control in healthy adolescents.
Front Psychol. Sprint-based exercise and cognitive function in adolescents. Prev Med Rep. Ment Health Phys Act. BMC Public Health. Immediate and sustained effects of intermittent exercise on inhibitory control and task-related heart rate variability in adolescents. J Sci Med Sport. J Sch Nurs. Develop rock solid core stability. Evading defenders through incredible balance and speed as they all bounce off his diminutive frame, the pintsized playmaker is on another level to the rest of his rivals.
Not all of us are blessed with a low centre of gravity though, so how can you emulate that with an extra few inches? The trick is to give yourself a rock-solid core. But before you head off to do sit-ups and crunch, true core stability comes from mixing in some unstable exercises to your training regime. This means squatting on a Bosu-ball, using a T-bar for single-leg Romanian deadlift or getting on a TRX for some plank jacks, all of which will test your core and improve your stability when jostling for the ball.
The drill: Any of the above for six reps each, with a three-second break between. Make yourself stronger. Ignore strength training at your peril. Advances in sports science have awoken the football world to the positive effects of disciplines like Olympic lifting and general resistance training. Jump up and sprint forward to the 6m marker then back to the start. Turn and sprint to the 12m then return to the start.
Repeat for 6 reps increasing each week. We don't mean the tub-of-lard playing at right back. We mean the part of your Sunday soccer physique most prone to damage: your ankles. Stand with the balls of your feet on a step. Rise up on your toes — hold for a count of 10 — then gently lower your heels as far as you can.
Repeat this times, three times a week. As you progress try incorporating weights into this exercise.
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