Some brief match analysis numbers

The following discussion is an abbreviated section taken from Agility, Speed & Conditioning for Handball. Here we look at some actual quantified demands in a match, in terms of the running or locomotion component of the game – in order to have an understanding of how to target the physical preparation.

For a sport regarded as the 2nd or 3rd most popular sport throughout the majority of Europe, as well as parts of South America, North Africa and East Asia, and with such a high level of global participation, there is a remarkable lack of published research that exists out there in regards to the physical demands of handball. This is especially the case when it comes to actual quantified GPS analysis, or even time motion analysis. Other big global sports like football (soccer) basketball and rugby have large quantities of such information available for use and reference, and even a boutique sport like Australian Rules Football has a truckload of such information available. Yet with handball, unfortunately it is very slim pickings. Additionally, what is available is incomplete, unusable due to very poor collection methods, or not really relevant to what we are looking for. Having said that, there are some papers with figures out there, that we will refer to briefly here – that will highlight why we head in the direction that we do conditioning wise.

 

Total Distance Covered

A pretty good place to start when considering the running based demands of handball players in a match would be to try to find relevant data on the total distance covered by players during matches. The most recent work on motion analysis characteristics is the one published by Luig et al. (2008,) which conducted time-motion analyses during nine games of the 2007 men’s World Championship. About 170 players were monitored with cameras from the top of the sports halls. The analyses were conducted using a computerised match analysis system. Four movement categories were defined in this study: walking, slow running, fast running, and sprinting. I have put together the findings of the distances covered in the table below.

Position Mean (Average) Distance covered (+ and – 1 standard deviation)
Wing 3710.6m (+/- 210.2 m)
Backcourt players 2839.9m (+/- 150.6 m)
Pivot 2786.9m (+/- 238.8 m)
Goalkeeper 2058.1m (+/- 90.2 m)

So the numbers indicate that wingers have the greatest amount of work to perform – significantly more than other field players. However, it is important to note that playing time was also significantly higher in wings (37.37 minutes +/- 2.37 minutes) and goalkeepers (37.11 minutes +/- 3.28 minutes) than backcourt players (29.16 minutes +/- 1.70 minutes) and pivots (29.3 minutes +/- 2.7 minutes.) So when taking into account the time spent on the court, the relative workload doesn’t differ too much between field positions. This likely wouldn’t be a huge surprise given how much of the game consists of movement as a team, however what may come is quite a surprise is the 2km per game that goalkeepers cover.

What should be immediately striking as a take home from this first part of the analysis is the total distance covered – just over 2.5km to just over 3.5km. And this is at the highest level of the sport – the World Championships. Yes, you need to factor in court time and substitutions, however these are present at all levels of the game, and we can already see that a match demands a relatively low level of meters covered (significantly less than the 5km and 10km that players often cover when going off on runs for ‘extra fitness’).

Adding further to the discussion point about positions, in Competitive Demands of Elite Handball by Klaude Karcher from the Faculty of Sport Sciences at the University of Picardie in France, and Martin Buchheit of the Sport Science Unit at the Myorobie Association in France, the authors indicate;

“Pivots generally cover the smallest distance on the field, yet they exercise at a relatively high-intensity due to the large number of body contacts they give and receive. Wings perform the greatest number of high-intensity runs, receive and give the smallest number of contacts and show the lowest physiological demands. Finally, the playing activity of backs is between those described for the other two on-field positions, while they shoot and pass substantially more than all other players.”

However at the same time the authors also remind us that;

“Studies reporting between-position differences in running demands have shown very large disparities for wings and backs, with some studies demonstrating no consistency in the position classification between backs and wings. These differences are likely to be related to game nature (player rotation allowed or not), playing standard, tactical systems and tracking systems. Data are more consistent for pivots, indicating that they generally run less than all other outfield players.”

Once again, this doesn’t affect what we are looking at in our discussion here, as we are more interested in the general principles in how a game of handball is played, and the general patterns of physical demands associated.

Intensity of the Work

The research also broke down the average distance covered by field players into 4 categories of intensity, and laid out the general breakdown of where the ‘work’ performed in matches fall, which I have indicated in the table below. Please note that the percentages are percentages of actual distance covered, not percentages of time on court.

 

Intensity Level Percentage of total distance covered
Walking 34.3% (+/- 4.9%)
Slow Running 44.7% (+/- 5.1%)
Fast Running 17.9% (+/- 3.5%)
Sprinting 3% (+/- 2.2%)

(Classification: walking: 0 - 1.5 meters/second, slow running: 1.6 - 4.0 m/s, fast running: 4.1 - 6.0 m/s and sprinting: > 6 m/s)

So right away, you can see that more than 1/3 of the average distance covered by players is walking – making the ‘true’ distance covered doing any form of running even lower than we indicated in the previous table. This would indicate even further that longer distance runs are well off the mark as a conditioning tool with a specific and high level of carryover to matches.

The paper also noted;

“Compared with other players, wings covered significantly shorter distances while slow running but significantly longer distances while fast running and sprinting.”

This can largely be put down to the fact that it will normally be wingers who are responsible for breaking down court on fast-breaks, and therefore have the ability to cover the longer sprint distances. This highlights how important speed off the mark is for players in this position. The paper also interestingly noted;

“The distances covered are a lot less than what was reported in the 80s and is possibly due to how the game has changed with a better use of substitutions during the game to make sure players can perform fast movements for almost 21% of the total distance covered.”

Of course, fast movements only make up a small portion of total movement in a match, however it is in these fast movements that the significant events in matches happen – these bursts are where games are won or lost – and it is here where a high level of performance – and a repeated high level of performance – is so important.

Work-to-Rest-Ratio

The work-to-rest-ratio calculates how much work you do (defined as anything from moderate speed running all the way up to flat out sprinting) relative to how much rest you have (very slow jogging, walking and standing stationary.) Unfortunately due to the low level of research out there, there are very little quantitative figures to refer to, and to compare and look for patterns for consistency.

In a paper published in The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research in September 2011 entitled Match Analysis of Elite Adolescent Team Handball Players, the authors summarised;

“Defining ‘‘rest’’ as standing, walking or jogging, and work as the distance covered by high intensity running or sprinting, the work-to-rest ratio for our handball players was 1:2.”

That is, they found that for every minute of work (high intensity movement essentially), there are 2 minutes of rest (low intensity movement or none at all.)

Additionally, in a paper also published in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research in 2012 entitled Physical and Physiological Demands of Elite Team Handball, based on time-motion analysis of 30 elite male players with at least 5 years of experience in the top Portuguese handball professional league, the authors found;

“In >60% of the occurrences, the time between maximal intensity activities was >90 seconds, and 52.4% of the recovery periods were fulfilled by low-intensity activities (32.2 +/- 19.33% walking; 8.6 +/- 16.68% sideways medium-intensity movement; 7.3 +/- 9.29% jogging; 4.3 +/- 8.77% backwards movement). However, in almost half of the recovery time, the players were standing still (44.9 +/- 23.03%).”

So based on the limited available quantified research, we can still infer that rest times in between high intensity bursts in handball are on average significant, and the work to rest ratio is generally somewhere around the mark of twice as much rest time as work time. This is significant, as hopefully you can recognise the general pattern of large portions of very minimal work, together with short burst of quick and high intensity work, rather than a steady pattern of a moderate level of work (such as standard steady state running.)

Different Directions

We bolded a couple of the words in the last quote because they also draw attention to important points in relation to the movement in a game. There is mention of medium intensity sideways movement as well as backwards movement (when defending.) This is significant because it is another reminder of the fact that not only is handball played at varying intensities and speeds of movement rather than at one steady pace, but it is also not played in one constant motion forwards, but rather involves movements in different directions. This is important because conditioning merely in a forward pattern, even if it is at different intensities, will not carry over to the movement in different directions as highly as specifically conditioning these different directions. (This was something we went into in more detail in Strength & Power Training for Handball, but also ties in with our discussion here.)

Different Actions

As we have touched on a couple several times, handball involves many movements and changes in movement. In the paper which we just mentioned entitled Physical and Physiological Demands of Elite Team Handball, the authors also state;

“Time-motion analysis showed that during the average 73 minutes of match time, 825 activity changes were performed at 6 seconds intervals.”

A change in movement every 6 seconds on average! Additionally, they state;

“The results suggest that handball players spend a considerable amount of energy in acceleration and deceleration movements and illustrate the intermittent nature of their efforts.”

And in finding these results, they conclude;

“The time between each change of intensity and the number of intense actions and movements suggest a high anaerobic energy turnover during the critical periods of the game. Therefore, the training of handball players should comprise exercises targeting the ability to repeatedly perform high-intensity activities and to rapidly recover during less intense periods.”

Additionally in the other research paper that we quoted before entitled Match Analysis of Elite Adolescent Team Handball Players, the authors found a similarly high number of changes in activity throughout a match;

“Players made an average of 501 (+/- 47) changes of activity during a game (a change every 5.9 seconds of play).”

The authors also found;

“They performed 38 (+/- 6) high-speed runs, with an average duration of 2 (+/- 0.6 seconds.)”

So on average, there is a change in movement made by field players every few seconds, indicating a very high number of accelerations and decelerations, as well as changes of directions in the process.


Speed

The findings that we have mentioned also highlight something that we will discuss more a little later, but makes sense to touch on here, and it is that of speed. Speed is something that is often trained in handball players, under misguided techniques like standard sprint training. Aside from the fact that handball requires you to move in a range of different directions, as well as decelerate and not just accelerate, the numbers we covered highlighted average ‘sprint’ times of a mere 2 seconds. No one reaches their top speed in 2 seconds. In fact, this 2 seconds is barely enough to break into normal acceleration, but more so is the pure ‘take-off’ into a sprint. Additionally, when you are changing action every 6 seconds on average (as the numbers indicate), normal sprint and speed training would appear to be of very limited value. As mentioned, we will elaborate on speed in more detail in another discussion/article.

Conclusions and Key Points

The physical profile of handball is a complex and detailed one, and even by removing all the various elements like blocking, jumping, shooting, etc, and simply reducing the analysis to purely the running component of handball, the game is still very complex in its running profile. However, from the few resources that we have chosen to quote, as well as those that we have listed for further reading, we can summarise several important key points to remember, and to base running conditioning for handball around.

  1. Handball is undoubtedly an intermittent-based sport, and must be trained accordingly. Periods of work, at different speeds, interspersed with periods of rest (walking or standing or slow jogging) is the simplest way of describing the locomotion involved in a game of handball – so training for it should look like this too.
  2. Aerobic ability is still vital. But this does not mean to go out and perform 5- 10km runs. Rather you require a good aerobic level to be able to recover during your rest periods before your next effort. This also has ramifications for the appropriate way to condition this aerobic ability.
  3. Accelerations, decelerations, changes in direction as well as lateral (sideways) and backwards running are a vital component in piecing together an appropriate conditioning program. They make the running demands in a game far more difficult than if you were to just run 5km without stopping.
  4. The aim is to maintain as high a level as possible for as long as possible in the high intensity efforts that occur in a game. This does not just apply to the running portion, but also to other efforts like jumping and landing as well as shooting. In other words, all these components are linked.

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