COMPARISON OF RECOVERING TIMES AND AEROBIC CAPACITY ACCORDING TO PLAYING POSITIONS OF ELITE FOOTBALL PLAYERS

The purpose of this study was to compare aerobic capasities and recovery times according to playing positions of elite male football players. For this reason, twenty-four professional football players who played in Trabzonspor participated in voluntarily to this study. According to playing positions, players were divided to four different groups as three goalkeepers (age: 26,0 ± 2,64 years; height: 188,8 ± 2,88 cm; weight: 79,6 ± 5,13 kg), eight defencive players (age: 27,1 ± 2,69 years; height: 183,5 ± 5,12 cm; weight: 76,3 ± 3,06 kg), eight midfield players (age: 25,8 ± 1,64 years; height: 178,5 ± 8,79 cm; weight: 75 ± 7,63 kg) and five forward players (age: 28,0 ± 1,87 years; height: 181,8 ± 4,81 cm; weight: 73,4 ± 3,78 kg). The football players applied Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Level-1 (Yo-Yo IR1) which was a field test and recovery times, maximal oxygen consumption, maximal heart rates, and covered distances of players values were examinated according to positions of players. Kruskal Wallis-H test was used to determine significant difference between groups. According to test results, there is a significant difference (p ≤ 0.05) between recovery times, maximal oxygen exhaustion values, maximal heart beating numbers, and covered distances according to playing positions of male football players is statistically obtained. The differences between groups was determined with Mann Whitney-U analyze technique. According to test results, it was found that the covered distances (1987,5 ± 260,3m) and maximal oxygen consumption values (53,0 ± 2,17 ml/kg/dk) of midfield players was greater than players who played in other positions. The forward players had better recovery time values (3,38 ± 0,6 dk) than players who played in other positions while goalkeepers had lower maximal heart rate (179,3 ± 8,50 at m/dk) than players who played in other positions. As conclusion, it was statistically determined that aerobic power performance and recovery times of elite male football player was differentiated according to position of football players.