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Sports Performance

A new way of studying, approaching and managing the sport

Main
challenges

NON-INVASIVE MONITORING SYSTEMS

Improvement and development of non-invasive monitoring systems for mechanical exercise (external load) and the physiological response (internal load).

ANALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT

Analysis and assessment of new relationships between external and internal load markers.

PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION AND INJURY PREVENTION

Development of new solutions, tests, and plans to optimize performance and prevent muscle and tendon injuries.

MONITORIZACIÓN AUTOMÁTICAAUTOMATIC MONITORING

Automatic and non-invasive athlete monitoring in the gym using computer vision systems.

NEW INDICATORS OF FATIGUE

Development and monitoring of new indicators of fatigue.

NEW WAYS OF TRAINING

Exploration, development and implementation of new ways of training, from blood flow restriction to hypoxic training

Sports Performance

OUR PERFORMANCE AREA SEEKS TO IMPROVE ATHLETES’ PHYSICAL PREPARATION THROUGH A SYSTEMIC AND INTEGRATIVE APPROACH.

A distinctive way of understanding the game naturally brings with it a distinctive way of approaching and managing training loads.


Based on structured training methodology, developed under the wing of FC Barcelona over years, the performance area has the fundamental goal of improving our athletes’ physical preparation through a systemic and integrative approach.


Theories of complex dynamic systems have arisen as a new way of seeing the game and sport, fostering an understanding of the hierarchical organization of living systems and the dynamic interaction which leads them to self-regulate.

RELATED NOTES

Active recovery vs. passive recovery

It is important to assure a correct recovery between training sessions and even between the different exercises of the same session to maximize adaptations to training.

CAN BREATH HOLDING IMPROVE PERFORMANCE?

The Mexico 1968 Olympic Games represented a turning point in altitude training. Due to the dominance of athletes acclimatised to the altitude during the Games (they were held at an altitude of 2,340 m),1 in the 1970s, the implications of training or living in hypoxic conditions to improve performance started to be studied.

NEUROBIOLOGY OF DECISION-MAKING IN SPORTS

In 2008, neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes conducted a set of experiments at the Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience (Berlin) with the goal to learn more about the mechanisms of free will in human beings.

IS THE SPRINT A FRIEND OR AN ENEMY IN THE PLAYER’S TRAINING?

One of the main characteristics in football nowadays is the increase in actions performed at high speed. Its importance is such that, in most cases, goals and decisive actions are preceded by sprints.

STRATEGIES BASED ON EXERCISING TO PREVENT MUSCLE INJURY IN FOOTBALL

Injuries, specially muscle injuries, are a great concern in sports as they represent the main cause of interruption for athletes.

SLOW VS. FAST REPS

A training programme planning includes the handling of variables such as exercise selection, training volume and intensity, movement speed, rest interval or the duration of a repetition.

Player’s motivation in tough situations

Stadio Olímpico, Rome, in 2009. Manchester United and FC Barcelona are getting ready to play against each other in the Champions League Final.

Caffeine and performance, does it work for everybody?

There are several supplements to improve sports performance. However, only a few of them are scientifically proven to be effective.

Training load and performance in basketball: The more the better?

Professional basketball is evolving towards playing more matches, reaching up to 90 games per season.

A new tool to control muscle load in football players

Professional football players have some particular physiological characteristics which allow them to run an average of 10-12 km per match as well as reaching speeds above 30 km/h.

Monitoring fatigue with blood markers. The case of the German National Team in World Cups and European Championships

The international tournaments of national teams represent an important change in the players’ regular workload.

Is Training Different in Each Country?

Possibly, the most important goal in training is helping the players to develop skills and behaviours to improve their performance during competition.

Exercise and muscle damage, how can nutrition help?

Exercise-induced muscle damage and the consequent muscle pain, commonly known as ‘stiffness’, conditions our performance.

What is the energy expenditure of a goalkeeper?

The training adaptations depend on the specificity of stimuli generated during the session. In football, there is a player that differs from the rest: the goalkeeper.

Training loads throughout the season in the Premier League

The physical demands in professional football have increased in recent years. The game is shifting towards an increase both in the distance that players cover in a match and in the intensity at which they execute their actions.

The Strength-Speed-Power Profile during competition

One of the main characteristics of elite football players is their ability to perform different actions at maximum speed. Its importance is such that most goals are preceded by sprints.

Can Preseason Reduce the Risk of Injury?

Preseason goals in elite football are diverse. It is about testing, “measuring forces with other teams” and developing the physical abilities of the players to prepare them in the best way possible for the demands of the season.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG PLAYERS. SPECIALIZATION OR MULTISPORT?

One of the most common debates among sports agents dedicated to talent training has to do with the convenience of young athletes’ early specialisation.

WHEN SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AND THE PLAYERS’ BELIEFS DO NOT MATCH

Players’ beliefs may clash with scientific evidence that often supports coaching staff intervention routines.

ÁNGEL CAPPA, THE COACH AT THE CENTRE OF FOOTBALL

Cappa’s fundamental premise is to approach football without fear. You cannot coach a team ruled by fear of its rivals.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TEAM LEADERS GIVING CONFIDENCE TO THE TEAM

The success of team leaders has a lot to do with their ability to inspire and empower the team.

MATT TABERNER’S “CONTROL-CHAOS CONTINUUM” REHABILITATION AFTER INJURY MODEL

As a team’s success is greatly determined by player availability, injuries may exert a great influence upon the team’s results throughout a season, subsequently affecting the team’s final league position and the club’s financial income.

HOW CAN PLAYING WITHOUT AN AUDIENCE AFFECT THE MATCH RESULT?

The return of the competition almost three months later includes a change in the regulation that allows a maximum of 5 substitutions per game and a bigger number of players can be called.

CAN GENETICS HELP PREDICT SPORTS TALENT?

Physiological, anthropometric and psychological traits are partially inheritable; that’s why there’s a growing interest to find new techniques which can help predict sports talent through the use of genetics.

DIFFERENCES IN THE MAXIMUM DEMAND SCENARIOS IN FOOTBALL BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND HALF

The goal for training is to help players be best prepared for competing.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION IN TEAM SPORTS. PACO SEIRUL·LO’S PROPOSAL

Science has changed training in team sports by modifying many routines and preparations. The quantification of everything which takes place in a training session is one of the goals for the staff.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE LOCKDOWN FOR PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES

There is no precedent whatsoever for the situation lived in professional sports all over the world as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. The majority of athletes have had to face uncertainty.

RETURN TO TRAINING AND COMPETITION IN PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL AFTER COVID-19. WHAT DO THE EXPERTS THINK?

The pandemic curve seems to have flattened, and now the health authorities have already started to design a de-escalation plan.

ANDREAS IVARSSON: “INCLUDING PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES IN THE PREVENTION PROGRAMS WOULD REDUCE THE RISK OF INJURIES”

One of the great dangers an athlete can face, if not the greatest, is the risk of getting injured. That’s why its prevention and treatment constitute an essential part of the medical and performance department of the clubs.

CURRENT CHALLENGES IN SPORTS FACING COVID-19: TRAINING, STADIUMS AND BUDGET

The long inactivity due to the forced quarantine has taken a long time to be accepted by all of the economic sectors.

GAMIFICATION OF BARÇA’S FEMALE TEAM TRAINING SESSIONS DURING CONFINEMENT

Physical trainer Lluis Cortés and his physical trainers, Berta Carles and Jacob González have organised training sessions as if they were a competition for as long as this break lasts.

COVID-19: HOW FC BARCELONA TRAINS DURING THE ISOLATION PERIOD

The quarantine necessary to flatten the pandemic curve has completely changed the training and competition dynamics of athletes and clubs, which suddenly have had to modify their usual training.

THE INFLUENCE OF COACHES ON PLAYERS’ LEARNING. HOW TO GIVE FEEDBACK DURING A TRAINING SESSION

The profession of a coach is not easy at all. Besides an outstanding knowledge of the gameplay, it is necessary to fully master pedagogical skills to help players learn better and faster.

HOW DOES PLAYING AN EXTRA TIME INFLUENCE A FOOTBALL PLAYERS’ PERFORMANCE?

Two studies have analyzed how playing extra time influences players’ physical and technical-tactical performance.

THE INFLUENCE OF A PLAYER BEING SENT OFF ON THE TEAM’S PERFORMANCE

Sending off a player seems to have a psychological effect within the team, which leads them to exert a greater effort during what’s left of the match.

HAPPINESS VERSUS WELLNESS IN ELITE SPORT

In team sports, coaches make a lot of decisions and some of them have an immediate impact on the efficiency of the game.

THE COADJUVANT TRAINING METHODOLOGY USED BY FC BARCELONA

Almost 25 years ago Paco Seirul·lo advocated the need for adaptation of high training loads with a parallel preparation to improve physical and technical abilities for elite athlete.

WINTER BREAK AND INJURIES IN ELITE FOOTBALL

The number of official matches that every season professional footballers play, has increased.

TRAINING LOAD, PERFORMANCE AND INJURY RISK IN RUGBY PLAYERS

A rugby player’s ability to perform high-intensity intermittent exercises is associated with a higher training load (TL) which takes place during matches.

WHAT WILL FOOTBALL LOOK LIKE IN 2030? THE EVOLUTION OF THE GAME SINCE 1966

We are interested to know what will football look like in the future. We must anticipate this during training to prepare the players as well as possible.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO LEARN TO WORK IN FOOTBALL ANALYTICS?

If you enjoy both the game itself and statistics, nothing could be better than combining the two in a career.

THE FUTURE OF TRACKING AT CAMP NOU

The purpose is straightforward: To know all that’s happening with the players on a football pitch.

WHEN INTERPRETING TRAINING DATA, THINK TWICE BEFORE DOING NOTHING!

“Load Management” has become a popular phrase in high-performance sport.

THE SCIENCE OF SPACE CREATION

Javier Fernandez and other members of his team are leading a rigorous scientific attempt to understand football.

THE INFLUENCE OF AGE ON FOOTBALLERS’ PERFORMANCE

Elite athletes are getting older. We know that players can give their best performance levels for longer now than they could a few decades ago.

ARE FOOTBALL PLAYERS GETTING OLDER?

Changes in sport are closely linked to changes in society. Life expectancy is increasing and the retirement age has also progressively increased in Spain.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE H:Q RATIO AND HAMSTRING INJURIES

Injuries are one of the main concerns in the world of sports as they are the primary reason which interrupts an athlete’s training program.

THE USE OF VR/AR/MR TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE IN SPORTS

Virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality are establishing themselves in a society which is becoming ever more accustomed to the use of new technologies for entertainment, consumption or information.

PRE-SEASON DESIGN: THE INFLUENCE OF INITIAL RESULTS ON A TEAM’S FINAL RANKING

One of the first decisions a club’s coaching staff must take is the design of pre-season training.

PRE-SEASON. GETTING READY TO SHAPE THE PHYSICAL FITNESS OF PLAYERS

The objective of the pre-season is to seek the best individual and collective physical fitness of the team before beginning the competition.

THE ADVANTAGE OF PLAYING AT HOME

The advantage of playing at home in football is a widely studied and recognised phenomenon.

SMALL-SIDED GAMES IN FOOTBALL. ARE ADAPTATIONS THE SAME FOR PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS AND AMATEURS?

Small-sided games (SSG) are very common training tasks for any team.

APPLYING THE PRINCIPLES OF JOHAN CRUYFF TO DATA SCIENCE

With such an ambitious goal, the Barça Innovation Hub has presented its research at this year’s world-renowned MIT Sloan Sports Analytics international conference.

EVALUATION OF THE INTERNAL LOAD IN FOOTBALL: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

The development of elite sports has meant that players are constantly exposed to higher training loads, busier competition schedules and shorter rest periods.

ISOMETRIC STRENGTH OF THE POSTERIOR CHAIN: ITS IMPORTANCE IN FOOTBALL AND HOW TO MEASURE IT

In football, hamstring injuries have been shown to account for up to 37% of muscle injuries.

NORDIC HAM CURLS DO NOT IMPROVE SPRINTING PERFORMANCE

The hamstring muscle is very important in sports such as football. Not only because this muscle is key to sprinting, but also because hamstring muscle injuries are the most frequent kind of injuries.

MAXIMUM DEMAND SCENARIOS IN POSITIONAL PLAY: ARE THEY EQUALLY REPLICATED ACROSS ALL POSITIONS?

Players’ conditional response during competition, for example, distance covered at a run, has traditionally been described using the average value covered during a half or full game.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE PERCEIVED EXERTION RATING ON FOOTBALL TRAINING AND COMPETITION.

Monitoring training load is one of the fundamental tools for optimising the performance of both elite athletes in general and football players in particular.

ENTROPY, A NEW MEASUREMENT IN STRENGTH TRAINING

The ability to sprint is essential in the majority of team sports, including rugby, soccer, and basketball. But this ability is not developed in stable and controlled conditions: players are constantly subjected to variable demands, whether receiving, carrying, passing, hitting, or throwing the ball.

ARE SMALL-SIDED GAMES THE SOLUTION TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS?

One of today’s most attention-grabbing topics among sports researchers, coaches and managers have to do with the study of maximal demand scenarios, also known as “worst case scenarios”.

PLAYER ORIENTATION, A KEY ASPECT OF PREDICTIVE MODELS IN FOOTBALL

In the OptaPro Forum this week, Carlos Rodríguez will be presenting a study currently being carried out by the club on the body orientation of players in different game situations. We sat down for a chat with him so that he could give us a brief explanation of the project.

WHICH VARIABLES DO WE TRAINERS LOOK AT TO HELP US MAKE DECISIONS?

Of all the variables provided by the systems that monitor and record our players’ activity, what is the most relevant information? This is a question that all coaches will probably face when they begin managing the large volumes of data generated in every training session.

FC BARCELONA: HOW OUR NEW RESEARCH HELPED UNLOCK THE ‘BARÇA WAY’

For the first time, our new research may provide some insight into the training methodology and, potentially, the secrets of the club’s success. These “secrets” could be closely associated with the theories put forward by coach Paco Seirul·lo and how they link with cutting edge sports science.

DO FOOTBALL PLAYER’S MENTAL ABILITIES INFLUENCE THE RISK OF INJURY?

Mental abilities, although not yet fully appreciated, are already considered a relevant part of performance. But their importance could go beyond that: Do they also influence the injury risk, including recurrence, once the player returns to play?

NEW DATA ON PHYSICAL DEMANDS IN BASKETBALL PLAYERS

A basketball player performs approximately one thousand actions on average during a game, and at least one out of every ten requires high intensity. The detailed analysis of these physical demands allows for optimized training, improved performance and decreased injury risk.

INJURY TYPE IN HANDBALL MAY VARY BY POSITION, CATEGORY AND MATURATION OF PLAYERS

Although several studies have tried to evaluate the characteristics of the risk of injury in handball players, they have been unable to reach sufficiently reliable conclusions. A new study of all the FC Barcelona handball categories has attempted to shed more light on the subject.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO DEVELOP AN “UNBREAKABLE” ATHLETE?

HOW PHYSICAL DEMANDS ON FOOTBALL PLAYERS VARY BY THEIR POSITION

Although there are several studies on this topic, many of them have analyzed these demands by looking at just a few variables or using very broad timeframes. A new study completed by physical trainers from F.C. Barcelona has analyzed several of these details more closely.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONNECTIVE TISSUE IN MUSCLE INJURIES

An article published in The Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine —in which members of the club’s medical services participated— now suggests to consider the detailed structure of the area affected, and treating the extracellular matrix as an essential player in the prognosis of the injury.

HAMSTRING AND OTHER MUSCLE INJURIES IN CHILDREN AND YOUNG ATHLETES

This is a groundbreaking study that addresses hamstring injuries in children and youth. The results indicate that the risk is lower than it is in adults, though no less significant, and that it increases progressively with age.

WHAT IS LOAD MANAGEMENT REALLY ABOUT?

In this article, Tim Gabbett and his team provide a user-friendly guide for practitioners when describing the general purpose of load management to coaches.

TWO WEEKS ARE ENOUGH TO INCREASE MUSCLE VOLUME AND STRENGTH

For the first time, it has been demonstrated that it does not take months of training to significantly improve both muscle volume and strength; instead, two weeks of an appropriate exercise are enough.

RECOVERY NUTRITION FOR FOOTBALL: BUILDING A TEAM

ECCENTRIC EXERCISES: STUDYING “VACCINES” FOR MUSCLES

Training using eccentric exercises is important to prevent possible damage. However, intensive training can also cause muscle damage, so it is critical to be vigilant in order to keep injury risk to an absolute minimum.

AN OBJECTIVE CLASSIFICATION OF MUSCLE INJURIES

An objective and appropriate classification would improve the accuracy of prognosis, allow treatment to be adjusted and reduce the risk of re-injury.

STUDY OF HIGH INTENSITY ACCELERATIONS AND DECELERATIONS IN SOCCER

A new dimension of analysis suggests that maximum accelerations occur with a frequency 8x greater than sprint actions.

THE LEVEL OF RESISTANCE AS A MODERATOR OF THE TRAINING LOAD

Cardiovascular endurance manifests as a moderator of the load result to which the athlete is exposed.

PRE-SEASON TRAINING LOAD AND INJURY RISK

The pre-season or preparatory phase of the season is a time when major “errors” in training load management are often committed.

Are the players well positioned in relation to the ball?

Through the use of computer vision we can identify some shortcomings in the body orientation of players in different game situations.

Diagnostic Imaging in Sports Medicine: Present and Future

Muscle injuries account for more than 30% of all injuries in sports like soccer. Their significance is therefore enormous in terms of training sessions and lost game time.

RELATED PROGRAMS