Relation between maximal aerobic power and the ability to repeat sprints in young basketball players

Castagna, C., V. Manzi, S. D'Ottavio, G. Annino,E. Padua, and D. Bishop. Relation between maximal aerobic power and the ability to repeat sprints in young basketball players. J. Strength Cond. Res. 21(4):1172-1176. 2007.-The aim of this study was to examine the effects of maximal aerobic power (&Vdot;o(2)peak) level on the ability to repeat sprints (calculated as performance decrement and total sprinting time) in young basketball players. Subjects were 18 junior, well-trained basketball players (age, 16.8 +/- 1.2 years; height, 181.3 +/- 5.7 cm; body mass, 73 +/- 10 kg; &Vdot;o(2)peak, 59.6 +/- 6.9 ml.kg(-1).min(-1)). Match analysis and time-motion analysis of competitive basketball games was used to devise a basketball-specific repeated-sprint ability protocol consisting of ten 15-m shuttle run sprints with 30 s of passive recovery. Pre, post, and post plus 3-minute blood lactate concentrations were 2.5 +/- 0.7, 13.6 +/- 3.1, and 14.2 +/- 3.5 mmol.L(-1), respectively. The mean fatigue index (FI) value was 3.4 +/- 2.3\% (range, 1.1-9.1\%). No significant correlations were found between &Vdot;o(2)peak and either FI or total sprint time. A negative correlation (r = -0.75, p = 0.01) was found between first-sprint time and FI. The results of this study showed that &Vdot;o(2)peak is not a predictor of repeated-sprint ability in young basketball players. The high blood lactate concentrations found at the end of the repeated-sprint ability protocol suggest its use for building lactate tolerance in conditioned basketball players.