engleski

Heart rate of referees during basketball game

Today’s basketball game, which is characterized by highly intense activity virtually throughout all the forty minutes of its duration, requires players to apply a wide range of basic and specific functional and motor skills. Physiological demands of competition on players were examined but there is a lack of evidence of demands on referees who are also a very important factor in basketball game. The aim of this study was to evaluate heart rates of referees during the basketball game. Methods The sample consisted of 31 male Croatian referees who volunteered to participate in this investigation. The heart rates were measured during the games via telemetry – POLAR model RS400. The obtained data were analyzed by standard statistical procedures, with statistical software package SPSS 13.0. Results and discussion: The average heart rate during the games was 139.63±9.19 bpm which was 74.86±4.57% of the maximal values assessed during progressive treadmill test conducted in laboratory.The highest values were recorded in the first quarters (141±9.88 bpm) and the lowest in the fourth quarter (137.8±9.77 bpm). Differences between the quarters were not significant. This is not surprising because during the whole match referees tend to be at the right place in the right moment in order to keep up with the game. It is interesting that the lowest recorded values were allways above the rest values. Most of the time heart rate values were between the 80 and 90% of the values recorded at the ventilatory threshold levels of the referees. Of course, significant variations in the range of heart rate during matches have been observed between individual referees. This must be related to the fitness level of each referee. The obtained values are somewhat lower than values in the study of Leicht (2007). Heart rate can normally be used for estimating the consumption of oxygen during physical activity. However, during an intermittent activity the increase in heart rate is not proportional to the increase in oxygen intake and is not always a true reflection of oxygen intake, particularly not in sports due to the activity of the upper parts of the body (2). However we calculated the energetic consumption and it was 1108.38±173.12 kcal on average for the game or 13.97±1.89 kcal/min. Conclusion Analyzing the results obtained in the study it may be concluded that physiological requirements for top level basketball refereeing are very high and that they put a lot of pressure on the cardiovascular system and the metabolic capacity of referees.

basketball; referees; heart rate

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