title: Player movement patterns and game activities in the Australian Football League.
abstract: In the Australian Football League (AFL), specific game movements and activities have not been studied since the 1970s and 1980s and the game is now much faster than it was 20-30 years ago. Using lapsed-time video analysis, AFL players from five different positions (full forward/full back, centre half forward/centre half back, small forward/small back, mid fielders and ruckmen) had their movement patterns (stand, walk, jog, fast-run, sprint, change of direction) and game activities (possessions, ruck duels, ground ball contests, shepherds, spoils, bumps and tackles) recorded in two games each in the 2000 season. A descriptive analysis of the results was undertaken. The main findings were: full forward/full back were most different from the other positions, as they were seen to stand more and jog and fast-run less: ruckmen and midfielders were involved in more game activities than the other positions; for all positions, there were more than 150 high intensity movements (fast-run plus sprint) in the game, but these accounted for only 4-6% of total movement time: virtually all of the high intensity movements lasted for <6 secs; more than half of all sprints involved at least one change of direction, mostly within the 0-90 degrees arc (left or right) and all ground ball contests took <6 secs, with midfielders having 2-3 times as many as the other positions. Improvements in specific pre-season and in-season training practices for different positions should be possible after careful interpretation of these findings.
authors.affiliation: School of Human Movement and Exercise Science, The University of Western Australia.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dawson
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hopkinson
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Appleby
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Roberts
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D006801:Humans; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D012420:Running / Q000502:physiology; D016037:Single-Blind Method; D012916:Soccer / Q000502:physiology*; D014741:Video Recording; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology