dellal influence of the technical instructions on physiological and

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Influence of the technical instructions on physiological and

physical demands within small-sided soccer games

Journal: European Journal of Sports Sciences

Manuscript ID: Draft

Manuscript Type: Original Paper

Keywords: Elite soccer, Technical actions, Physical demands, Physiological responses, Fitness training

URL: http:/mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tejs

European Journal of Sport Science

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Title: Influence of the technical instructions on the physiological and physical demands within

small-sided soccer games

Running head: Influence of the technical aspects within small-sided games

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Abstract

The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of changes in the number of

ball contacts authorized per individual possession on the physiological, technical and physical

demands within small-sided games (SSG) in elite soccer. Twenty international players have

performed three different SSG formats (i.e. 2 vs. 2; 3 vs. 3; 4 vs. 4) in three different

occasions in which the number of ball contacts authorized per possession was fixed (1=1T,

2=2T and free play=FP). The relative pitch per player ratio was similar for all SSG. The SSG

were performed with four support players (situated around perimeter of pitch) with the

instructions to keep possession of the ball. The total duration of the SSG was the effective

time of play. The physical demands, technical requirement, heart rate, post-exercise blood

lactate ([La]) and perceived exertion of effort (RPE) had been analyzed. The percentages of

successful passes and numbers of duels were significantly lower when the SSG was played in

1T form (P<0.001) whereas the numbers of ball lost increased (P<0.001 for the 2 vs. 2 and 3

vs. 3; P<0.001 and P<0.01 for the 4 vs. 4). Similarly, the SSG played in IT form induced an

increase of the [La], RPE but also led to greater physical demands in the total distance

covered in sprinting and high-intensity runs. In conclusion, the main findings of this study

revealed that by altering the number of ball contacts authorized per possession in SSG, the

coach could manipulate the physical and technical demands within SSG.

Keywords: Elite Soccer; Technical actions; Physical demands; Physiological responses;

Fitness training

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Introduction

In practice, coaches often modify playing rules in small-sided games (SSG) to achieve

greater exercise intensity, or to develop specific technical and tactical skills. Therefore, rule

changes represent an important prescriptive variable that influence SSG training intensity

(Dellal et al., 2008). It was described that the presence of goalkeepers, pitch dimensions,

number of players and the availability of replacement balls could influence the activity of the

players during a SSG (Hill-Haas et al., 2009; Dellal et al., 2008; Mallo & Navarro, 2008).

However, although the modern elite soccer is characterized by the capacity of the players to

play in a reduce number of ball contact per possession (Dellal, 2008), to the best of our

knowledge, no study have analyzed the influence of the modification of the number of ball

contacts authorized per individual possession within SSG. Sampaio et al. (2007) have tried to

examine it in youth players. These authors have reported an increase in the perceived exertion

of effort (RPE) when a SSG was played in free play form in comparison with the same SSG

played with a maximum of two touches on the ball authorized per possession. However, they

did not observed a change in the percentage of maximal heart rate (%HRmax). Similarly,

Aroso et al. (2004) have compared SSG played in free play and played with a maximum of

three ball touches authorized per possession in amateurs soccer players and, therefore, they

have found a significant increase in the blood lactate concentrations. These findings revealed

the importance of the determination of the number of ball contacts authorized per individual

possession within SSG both in youth soccer players and amateurs but is it also true in elite

soccer? The number of ball touches per possession is considered as a key factor in elite soccer

but the influence of the modification of this technical instruction was not tested within SSG in

elite players and within the 4 vs. 4, the most commonly SSG used. Although Dellal et al.

(2010a) have showed that players performed between 1.74 and 2.24 ball touches per

possession, no study had proposed to vary the number of ball contacts authorized per

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individual possession during several common SSG, played in a similar relative pitch per

player ratio.

In this context, due to the limited amount of published research concerning this area,

there is scope to examine the effects of common rule changes within the same SSG format, as

well as to investigate the effects of such changes on exercise intensity, perception of exercise

intensity, time-motion responses and technical actions at elite level. Consequently, the main

purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the modification of the number of ball

contacts authorized per individual possession (1 touch authorized, 2 touches authorized and

free play) within common SSG used in elite soccer (i.e. 2 vs. 2, 3 vs. 3 and 4 vs. 4). The

parameters analysed included measures of exercise intensity (%HRmax, RPE, blood lactate),

time-motion variables and technical activities.

Methods

Twenty international soccer outfield-players from the national team of Ivory Coast

participated in this study. Goalkeepers were excluded from this study. The anthropometric

and fitness characteristics of the players are presented in Table 1. The study was conducted

according to the ethical standards in sport and exercise science research (Harriss & Atkinson,

2009) and the protocol was fully approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee before

the commencement of the assessments. Written informed consent was received from all

players after a detailed explanation about the aims of the study.

The physical activities during SSG are well known but their relationship with the

technical actions is not well studied. Consequently, both the number of players and the

number of ball contacts authorized per possession were manipulated to test how the intensity

varied. Thus, the players have performed 3 SSG formats in which the number of ball contacts

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per possession had been fixed in order to observe the influence of the modification of a

technical instruction within SSG.

All subjects performed all the different SSG presented in Table 2 and which were

played in a random order over the 6 weeks of the study. The formats (2 vs. 2, 3 vs. 3, 4 vs. 4)

and the number of ball contacts authorized per individual possession (1 ball touch=1T, 2 ball

touches=2T and Free Play=FP) had been modified but the relative pitch size per player stayed

constant for the 3 different SSG formats. The SSG were performed with four support players

(situated around perimeter of pitch) in reduced areas with the instructions to keep possession

of the ball. Several balls were scattered all around the perimeter where the SSG had been

player for immediate availability. The total duration of the SSG is the effective time of play.

The characteristics of the SSG were in agreement with these commonly used in elite soccer

training and in the previous studies (Hill-Haas et al., 2009; Rampinini et al., 2007). All the

SSG sessions were separated by at least 2 days and had been performed at the same time of

the day in order to limit the effects of the circadian variations (Drust et al., 2005). Appropriate

standardized warming-up was performed before each SSG session.

***Table II and Table II near here***

Heart rate (HR) responses were continuously recorded by HR monitors (Polar S-810,

Polar-Electro, Kempele, Finland) at 5 sec interval during all the SSG. Training HR data were

expressed both as percentage of maximal HR (%HRmax) and percentage of reserve HR

(%HRreserve) according to the formula of Karvonen et al. (1957) previously used by Dellal

et al. (2008): %HRreserve=(exercise mean HR – resting HR) / (HRmax – resting HR) X 100.

This method allows an inter-individual comparison of the HR responses in soccer (Dellal et

al., 2009).

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Post-exercise blood lactate samples [La] were collected on each player at the 3rd

minute post-exercise from the fingertip after cleaning it by alcohol. The validity of the used

portable analyzer (Lactate Pro, Arkray, Japan) has been demonstrated (Pyne et al., 2000).

The rating of perceived exertion (RPE) is used to subjectively determine the player’s

level of intensity in training. In this context, the RPE scale proposed by Foster et al. (2001)

was employed as it allows the analysis of the global internal load in soccer training

(Impellizzerri et al., 2004). Immediately at the end of each SSG, players provided the RPE

value corresponding to the perception of the effort performed by means of a standardized

question.

The physical activities were analysed using a portable global positioning satellite system

(GPS, GPSports SPI Elite System, Canberra, Australia), which was previously validated in

soccer for the monitoring of high-intensity and sprint activities (Barbero-Álvarez et al., 2009).

This method presented a coefficient of variation of 3.6% for total distance and 5.8% for sprint

(Coutts et al., 2010). The distance covered was recorded at 1 Hz. In this context, the total

distance covered, the total distance covered in sprinting and the total distance covered in high

intensity runs (HIR) were measured. According to the previous time-motion analysis in SSG

(Hill-Haas et al., 2009), two thresholds were used to evaluate the distances run in these

categories of running speeds for SSG: 13-17 km·h-1 (HIR) and >17 km·h-1 (sprinting).

Each SSG was filmed using four fixed digital video cameras positioned around the

pitch area. These video cameras were positioned on a tripod 10m from the corner of the pitch.

The hand notational system was devised to determine the technical actions during the SSG.

Consequently, duels, percentage of successful passes, number of ball lost and total number of

possession were monitored by a video recording, which were play-back several times. This

method has been already described as reliable (Drust et al., 2007).

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Data are presented as means and standard deviations (mean±SD). Before using

parametric statistical test procedures, the normality of the data was verified by the

Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the statistical analysis variance homogeneity was provided by

the Hartley test. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test for differences in

performance measures between the numbers of ball touches in each SSG. Post hoc analyses

using the Bonferroni procedure pair-wise comparisons were used where appropriate. All

statistical analyses were performed using SPSS for Windows, version 17.0 (SPSS Inc.,

Chicago, IL, USA). The level of significance was set at P≤0.05.

Results

Firstly, the influence of the number of ball contact authorized per individual

possession was analyzed. The physiological responses were increased when the players

performed the different SSG in 1T form (Table 3). Indeed, the [La] and RPE values were

higher within SSG played in 1T form as compared to the 2T and FP (P<0.01), especially for

the 2 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 3. Moreover, HR responses remained unchanged by the modification of

the rules (except for the 4 vs. 4). The analysis of the physical activity showed greater total

distance covered in sprinting and in HIR within each SSG format played in the 1T form

(Table 4, and P<0.001 with FP).

The findings from the technical analysis showed that 2 vs. 2 performed in 1T form

were consistently different than 2T and FP for all the technical parameters analyzed (Table 5).

The percentage of successful passes and numbers of duels within the 2 vs. 2 were

significantly different in 1T form in comparison with the 2 vs. 2 played in FP form (Table 5).

The number of ball lost was affected by the modification of the number of the ball contact

authorized per possession, especially when the SSG was played in 1T form. Nevertheless,

although numbers of duels within the 3 vs. 3 were the highest when the rule was 1T form, the

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lowest values were reported for the 2 vs. 2 and 4 vs. 4 played in 1T form.

Secondly, the effect of the game formats was examined. The 4 vs. 4 presented

significantly lower values for the %HRreserve (with P<0.01 in FP; P≤0.05 in 2T and 1T) and

for the [La], especially in 1T and 2T (P<0.001) in comparison with those induced by the 2 vs.

2 and 3 vs. 3 SSG (Table 3).

The total distance, and the total distance covered in sprinting and HIR were greater

within the 4 vs. 4 as compared to the other SSG formats, with especially 493.2±60.5 m in

sprinting (20.0% and 52.9% greater than the others SSG) and 638.9±56.2 m in HIR (16.7%

and 48.3% greater than the others SSG). However, the 2 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 3 allowed players the

opportunity to reach greater proportion of sprint (ranged from 15.7% to 17.8%) and HIR

activities (ranged from 21.1% to 24.7%) expressed in percentage of the total distance covered

in comparison with the 4 vs. 4 (Table 4).

The 4 vs. 4 presented lower duels per minute of play (P<0.001), ball lost per minute of

play (P<0.001) and number of possession (P<0.001) than the 2 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 3 (Table 5).

The 2 vs. 2 played in 1T form showed the lowest values for all technical parameters tested

(P<0.001), except for the duels. The percentage of successful passes were similar for the 3 vs.

3 and 4 vs. 4 but players missed more passes and lost more balls per minute of play during the

2 vs. 2 (P<0.001).

***Table III, Table IV and Table V near here***

Discussion

The findings of the present study showed that the modification of the number of ball

contacts authorized per individual possession influenced the technical activities, physical

demands and physiological responses within SSG in elite soccer players. The variation of this

game rule allows modifying the intensity of the SSG and influences the technical difficulties

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within the SSG, and thus indicated that the organization of this exercise has to be precisely

planned by the coach, especially the technical and tactical instructions.

The physiological responses of players during the SSG are well known, but the time-

motion analysis was not largely studied. The modification of the number of players and the

balance of the opposition (Hill-Haas et al., 2009) had been shown to alter the total distance

covered, the HIR and sprinting performances. The results of the present study revealed that

the variation of the number of ball contacts authorized per possession induced also greater

differences in physical demands. Indeed, SSG played in 1T form increased the total distance

covered especially in sprinting and HIR whereas Jones & Drust (2007) have found that the

modification of the number of players only implied a difference of the total distance covered.

The contrasting findings may be reflected via the methodological differences between the two

experiments as Jones & Drust (2007) have compared the physical demands during a 8 vs. 8

and a 4 vs. 4 SSG. It is suggested that all the SSG played in a greater format than the 4 vs. 4

may not have the best training results due to the lack of control over key physical activities

performed by players. A high number of players induced a greater tactical contribution and

thus, the physical actions are less controllable. To illustrate it, [La] and RPE were higher

when the SSG was played in 1T form whereas it was not the case for the 4 vs. 4

corresponding to the difficulty to control the physical demands when the numbers of players

was increased, which was previously described by Dellal et al. (2008). The present study

showed that the reduction of the number of ball contacts per possession leads to more sprints

and HIR activities, which are crucial in modern elite soccer (Dellal et al., 2010a; Dellal et al.,

2010b).

More specifically, Kelly & Drust (2009) have shown that the pitch dimension did not

alter HR responses as the present study demonstrated that the number of ball contacts did not

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modify the HR responses during 2 vs. 2 and the 3 vs. 3. However, during the 4 vs. 4, HR

responses were different when the number of ball contacts authorized was changed.

Consequently, it can be suggested from this study that the increase of the number of players

combined to the manipulation of the number of ball contacts allow manipulate the solicitation

of the central component, i.e. HR responses.

The presence of goalkeepers appears to modify the number of ball contacts and the

number of short passes (Mallo & Navarro, 2008) whereas the reduction in the number of

players increased the number of individual ball contacts (Jones & Drust, 2007). However,

although the present study revealed similar results when the SSG was played in 1T form, no

difference in the number of possession was found between the 2T and FP forms. The latter

results could be explained by the fact that the number of ball contacts in professionals is near

of 2 touches by possession (Dellal et al., 2010a; Dellal et al., 2010b) and consequently, the FP

rule could naturally correspond to the 2T type of exercise. Moreover, the number of duels and

percentage of successful passes decreased when the number of ball contacts per possession

used was in 1T form (except for the 3 vs. 3) whereas the number of ball lost was increased.

In conclusion, the main findings of the present study reveals that by altering the

number of ball contacts authorized per individual possession, the coach could manipulate the

physical and technical demands within SSG. Additionally, the coach could increase the

proportion of the total distance covered in sprinting and in HIR, favour the duels, solicit a

greater number of possession and confront their players in a difficult situation (greater

number of ball lost and lower number of successful passes) by varying the technical

instructions within the SSG. All these elements could help towards the planning of seasonal

programs and multifunctional aspect of specific training sessions.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank all the players of the national soccer team of Ivory Coast for their participation. The

authors have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this article.

This study was not supported by any financial aid.

Competing interests: None declared.

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Coutts, A.J., & Duffield, R. (2010). Validity and reliability of GPS units for measuring

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training: special reference to the high intensities intermittent exercises and the small

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Kelly, D.M., & Drust, B. (2009). The effect of pitch dimensions on heart rate responses and

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Medicine in Sport, 12(4), 475-479.

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S.M. (2007). Factors influencing physiological responses to small-sided games. Journal

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and perceptual responses to 2 x 2 and 3 x 3 small-sided youth soccer games. Journal of

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Table I. Characteristics of the subjects.

SUBJECTS

n=20

Age (years)

Body Mass

(kg)

Body Height (cm)

vVO2max (km.h

-1)

Maximal HR

(bpm)

Resting HR (bpm)

% of body

fat

Means ± SD 27.4 ± 1.5 79.2 ± 4.2 180.6 ± 2.3 17.4 ± 0.8 199.9 ± 4.1 51.4 ± 3.6 12.7 ± 1.2

vVO2max: the lowest velocity associated with VO2max.

Maximal HR: the highest HR value observed at the end of the VAMEVAL test.

Resting HR: the minimal value of the HR observed when the athletes laid on a bed during 10 min at 10.30 am.

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Table II. Characteristics of the the small-sided games (SSG).

Format Game

duration

Duration of recovery

between SSG (min)

Pitch area

(m)

Pitch total

area (m2)

Pitch ratio per player

(m2)

2 vs. 2 4 X 2 min 3 20 X 15 300 1:75

3 vs. 3 4 X 3 min 3 25 X 18 450 1:75

4 vs. 4 4 X 4 min 3 30 X 20 600 1:75

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Table III. Physiological responses within the different small-sided games formats with different rules.

Small-sided

games Rules

Blood

lactate

(mmol·l-1

)

RPE

(CR-10)

Mean HR

(beats·min-1

) %HRmax %HRreserve

1 touch ball (1T) 3.9 ± 0.3* 8.2 ± 0.7#

182.1 ± 5.4 90.3 ± 2.6 87.2 ± 3.5

2 touches ball (2T) 3.5 ± 0.3 7.7 ± 0.6 181.6 ± 4.5 90.1 ± 2.2 86.9 ± 3.0

Two-a-side

Free play (FP) 3.4 ± 0.2 7.6 ± 0.6 181.5 ± 4.1 90.0 ± 2.3 86.8 ± 3.0

1 touch ball (1T) 3.8 ± 0.4* 8.1 ± 0.7#

181.4 ± 4.8 90.0 ± 2.4 86.6 ± 3.1

2 touches ball (2T) 3.3 ± 0.5 7.9 ± 0.7 180.2 ± 4.8 89.3 ± 2.8 85.9 ± 3.6

Three-a-side

Free play (FP) 3.0 ± 0.5 7.5 ± 0.5 180.7 ± 4.0 89.6 ± 2.2 86.2 ± 2.9

1 touch ball (1T) 2.9 ± 0.3 8.0 ± 0.7##

176.6 ± 4.5**

87.6 ± 2.5# 83.6 ± 3.3

#

2 touches ball (2T) 2.8 ± 0.1 7.9 ± 0.8#

172.5 ± 5.6 85.6 ± 2.9 80.8 ± 4.0

Four-a-side

Free play (FP) 2.9 ± 0.2 7.2 ± 0.5 170.7 ± 3.8 84.7 ± 2.7 79.7 ± 3.5

*Significantly greater than 2T and FP (P<0.01).

**Significantly greater than 2T (P≤0.05) and FP (P<0.001). #Significantly greater than FP (P≤0.05).

#P≤0.05 ;

##P<0.01 ;

###P<0.001

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Table IV. Physical responses within the different small-sided games formats with different rules.

Small-sided

games Rules

Total distance

covered (m)

Total distance

covered in

sprinting

(m)

% of total

distance in

sprinting

Total distance

covered in HIR

(m)

% of total

distance in

HIR

1 touch ball (1T) 1305.5 ± 62.1* 232.3 ± 19.5* 17.8 ± 1.6**

330.0 ± 29.4* 24.7 ± 2.0**

2 touches ball (2T) 1211.8 ± 72.1 195.1 ± 20.1#

16.1 ± 1.7 271.3 ± 38.6 21.9 ± 3.1

Two-a-side

Free play (FP) 1157.7 ± 82.9 177.5 ± 21.8 15.4 ± 2.2 245.4 ± 37.8 21.3 ± 3.6

1 touch ball (1T) 2247.6 ± 157.0**

397.0 ± 33.8* 17.7 ± 1.8**

523.2 ± 56.1* 23.4 ± 2.8**

2 touches ball (2T) 2124.7 ± 172.0# 351.2 ± 48.4

# 16.6 ± 2.3

# 473.9 ± 46.5

## 22.4 ± 2.8

#

Three-a-side

Free play (FP) 2013.9 ± 154.5 315.6 ± 52.6 15.7 ± 2.4 422.4 ± 33.4 21.1 ± 2.1

1 touch ball (1T) 3057.3 ± 249.8* 493.2 ± 60.5**

16.2 ± 2.7** 638.9 ± 56.2* 21.0 ± 2.3**

2 touches ball (2T) 2814.6 ± 220.3# 438.0 ± 62.3

## 15.7 ± 2.9

### 562 ± 66.4

### 20.1 ± 2.8

###

Four-a-side

Free play (FP) 2663.6 ± 236.6 381.8 ± 56.5 14.5 ± 2.5 482.7 ± 71.2 18.3 ± 3.2

*Significantly greater than 2T and FP (P<0.001).

**Significantly greater than 2T (P≤0.05) and FP (P<0.001). #Significantly greater than FP (P≤0.05).

#P≤0.05 ;

##P<0.01 ;

###P<0.001.

HIR: High-Intensity Runs.

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Table V. Technical responses within the different small-sided games formats with different rules.

Small-sided

games Rules

Number of

duel

Duel per

minute of

play

% of

successful

passes

Number of

ball lost

Ball lost per

min of play

Total number

of possession

1 touch ball (1T) 17.1 ± 1.9** 2.1 ± 0.2** 42.5 ± 4.7** 23.5 ± 4.4** 2.9 ± 0.5** 50.6 ± 5.0**

2 touches ball (2T) 28.5 ± 4.2 3.6 ± 0.5 60.5 ± 4.2# 14.1 ± 2.6 1.8 ± 0.3 41.4 ± 3.8

Two-a-side

Free play (FP) 26.1 ± 3.8 3.2 ± 0.4 66.4 ± 4.1 13.9 ± 2.4 1.7 ± 0.3 40.9 ± 4.4

1 touches ball (1T) 30.9 ± 3.6***

2.5 ± 0.3##

52.0 ± 3.9** 17.1 ± 3.6** 1.4 ± 0.3# 51.8 ± 7.1**

2 touches ball (2T) 28.1 ± 3.3 2.4 ± 0.3# 69.9 ± 2.1 15.1 ± 2.7 1.3 ± 0.2 43.7 ± 5.0

Three-a-side

Free play (FP) 26.8 ± 4.2 2.2 ± 0.3 71 ± 2.6 14.3 ± 5.2 1.2 ± 0.4 41.7 ± 6.1

1 touch ball (1T) 18.0 ± 3.6*** 1.1 ± 0.2###

49.8 ± 5.3** 14.8 ± 4.4*** 0.9 ± 0.3* 41.6 ± 4.4**

2 touches ball (2T) 16.5 ± 3.2###

1.0 ± 0.2###

68.9 ± 4.9# 13.6 ± 4.2 0.8 ± 0.3 34.7 ± 3.7

#

Four-a-side

Free play (FP) 25.1 ± 3.6 1.5 ± 0.2 73.4 ± 7.2 13.2 ± 4.8 0.8 ± 0.3 31.5 ± 3.6

*Significantly different than 2T and FP (P<0.01).

**Significantly different than 2T and FP (P<0.001).

***Significantly different than 2T (P<0.01) and FP (P<0.001). #Significantly different than FP (P≤0.05).

#P≤0.05 ;

##P<0.01 ;

###P<0.001.

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dellal influence of the technical instructions on physiological and

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