Age-related reference intervals for physical performance test outcomes relevant to male youth Middle Eastern football players

Lolli, Lorenzo, Gregson, Warren ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9820-5925, Bonanno, Daniele, Kuitunen, Sami and Di Salvo, Valter (2023) Age-related reference intervals for physical performance test outcomes relevant to male youth Middle Eastern football players. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 18 (11). pp. 1283-1295. ISSN 1555-0265

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Abstract

Purpose: To develop age-specific reference intervals for physical performance test outcomes relevant to male youth Middle Eastern football players. Methods: We analyzed mixed-longitudinal data (observations range: 1751–1943 assessments) from a sample of 441 male youth outfield football players (chronological age range: 11.7–18.4 y) as part of the Qatar Football Association and Aspire Academy development program over 14 competitive seasons. Semiparametric generalized additive models for location, scale, and shape estimated age-specific reference centiles for 10-m sprinting, 40-m sprinting, countermovement jump height, and maximal aerobic speed variables. Results: The estimated reference intervals indicated that the distribution of the physical performance test scores increased monotonically and nonlinearly with advancing chronological age for sprinting and countermovement jump outcome measures, reaching a plateau after 16 years common to each of these performance variables. The maximal aerobic speed median score increased substantially until ∼14.5 years, with the nonlinear trend flattening off toward relatively older chronological ages. Conclusions: We developed age-related reference intervals for physical performance test outcomes relevant to youth Qatari football players. Country-wide age-specific reference intervals can assist in the longitudinal tracking of the individual players’ progress over time against benchmark values derived from the reference population.