DOES LINEAR ACCELERATION IMPACT AGILITY, VO2MAX, 30 METER SPEED AND STANDING LONG JUMP IN AMATEUR SOCCER PLAYERS?

Agility and acceleration are known as high speed actions and impact soccer performance. Soccer players need MaxVO2 and standing long-jump to make high-speed actions during soccer match. The purpose of this study was to examine the prediction of the effect of acceleration on agility, endurance, long jump and 30 m-speed. Total 21 amateur male soccer players (mean ± SD: age = 20.29±1.82 yr, height = 1.81±0.37 m, and body weight = 72.10±3.71 kg) volunteered to participate in the study. Acceleration performance (10 m), sprint (30 m), agility (zigzag test), endurance (Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test 1), and jumping ability (standing long jump) were tested. Acceleration predicts MaxVO2 by 19.8 %, agility by 49.9 %, and 30 m-speed by 32.9 %. On the other hand, there is not relationship between acceleration and standing long jump. If we consider that there is a decrease in agility and subsequent increase in football players' sudden change of direction, we see that acceleration explains the decrease and increase in agility rate at the best level. It is thought that acceleration does not affect the long jump by stopping, as footballers are exposed to vertical jump rather than horizontal jump. To improve agility and speed performance, football coaches can design combined acceleration based training.