Quantifying external and internal loads of the average and high-intensity phase demands of university female footballers

The match-play external and internal loads of university female footballers are not well understood. Therefore, the aims of this study were to quantify the average and 5-minute high intensity phase (HIP) match-play loads of university female footballers. With institutional ethical approval granted, twenty trained female footballers (age 20.0 ± 1.3, mass 64.9 ± 12.9 kg) volunteered to take part in the study across six competitive fixtures. Global positioning systems (Catapult, Australia) and heart rate monitors (Polar, Finland) were used to quantify external and internal loads during match-play. Linear mixed models with fixed and random effects were used to analyse match data and compare between positions. Forty-five and 53 observations were used for the average and HIP loads. Players covered total distances of 8160m, with 456m covered at high speed and 151m covered at sprint distance; central defenders completed less high intensity running than attackers (p < .005). During 5-minute HIP’s, no differences were observed for accelerations (n) and PlayerLoad (au) between positional groups (p > .05). Attackers covered more high-speed running (p = .005) and sprint distance (p = .019) than central defenders and midfielders (p = .012; p = .017). These data describe average whole match and 5-minute HIP external and internal loads of university female footballers. Coaches could use this to inform conditioning practices by exposing attacking players to greater volumes of high intensity running.