Elite hit ball performance profile: technical, tactical and heart rate aspects, and effects of competition on jump and strength performance

Perfiles de rendimiento en hit ball de elite: aspectos técnicos, tácticos y frecuencia cardíaca, y los efectos de la competición en la capacidad de salto y rendimiento de fuerza

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 International.

Hit ball is a return, territorial (i.e., not invasion), and situational team sport officially originated in Turin (Italy) in the late seventies following an experimental work of a physical education teacher (Ictrilussa, 2017). This sport is now played in many countries around the world (Australia, India, France, Germany, or Spain). In Italy, this discipline is currently played in all the country with championships based on different competitive levels (i.e., Serie A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2) organized by the Italian Hit Ball Federation (Federazione Italiana Hit Ball, F.I.H.B.), which was founded in 1992.

Hit ball is mainly played in-door by two teams of 5 players, who compete for two 15-min (first and second, respectively) and two 7.5 min (third and fourth, respectively) quarters of live time. The playing court has a parallelepiped form (width: 10m, length: 20m) divided by a line (the halfway line) that can never be crossed and that separates the two teams, two lateral walls, and one goal located at the bottom of each team court side (height: 2.3 m; width: 10 m). Each team’s half court is divided into “defence” (width: 10m, length: 4m, occupied by 3 players who score 2 points in case of goal), “attacking” (same dimensions, occupied by 2 players who score 1 points for each goal), and a “neutral” (width: 10m, length: 4m, close to the halfway line, where not more than 2 players can play only to defend the opponents’ hits, having the interdiction to score a goal) zones, respectively. The lateral walls, as well as the one above players (at 4 m of height) consist of methacrylate material and allow the rebound of the ball (consisting of rubber; weight: 260 gr; diameter: 21 cm). The ball is hit with an arm coated with a polyurethane protective cuff (around 20 cm of length; 8 mm of thickness) and like many other team sports a team’s aim is to score goals (called Hits) in order to win the match by scoring more points than the opponent (Figure 1).

Figure 1
Hit ball court (Hit Ball Australia, 2016)

Although no studies on hit ball have been reported in literature yet, providing a performance analysis of this team sport could be beneficial for hit ball’s coaches and physical trainers, as well as other net and wall (i.e., volleyball, tennis, paddle, squash) and invasion (i.e., handball) games disciplines which have similar playing structures (i.e. scoring points, playing situations).

Technical and tactical analyses suffer in terms of replication due to the complexity of their situational nature (Gómez, DelaSerna, Lupo, & Sampaio, 2014; Lupo & Tessitore, 2016; Tessitore, Perroni, Meeusen, Cortis, Lupo, & Capranica, 2012). Therefore, the progressive improvement of this type of information demonstrated to be crucial in increasing the knowledge for coaching team sports (Hughes & Franks, 2004), especially by discriminating winning and losing performances (Gómez et al., 2014; Gómez, DelaSerna, Lupo, & Sampaio, 2016; Lupo & Tessitore, 2016). In addition, even though no heart rate (HR) data has been reported for the analysis of hit ball matches, they could allow to profile the performance in terms of aerobic or anaerobic contribution of the energy systems, as already provided for other less known sports (Lupo, Ammendolia, Rizzuto, Capranica, & Tessitore, 2012) or competition level (Lupo, Capranica, Cugliari, Gómez, & Tessitore, 2016).

In general, the maximal grip strength (GS) is considered a critical factor to sustain and control the ball especially for grasping, catching, passing, and throwing actions (Visnapuu & Jűrimäe, 2007). In previous studies carried out on different sports, the comparison of GS performances before and after situational sport performances (Chiodo, Tessitore, Cortis, Lupo, Ammendolia, & Capranica, 2012) highlighted a reduction (around 7%) of GS in both genders, which has been attributed to both the activities executed by the upper limbs (i.e. holding, punching, and body-to-body contact) and the effects of the repeated contusions exerted on the upper limbs while protecting against an opponent’s kicks and punches. According with this observed aspect, the present work could indicate whether the same effect can be confirmed or not in hit ball, especially for the shooting upper-limb, which is usually characterized by repeated concussions caused by shooting. Conversely, in other studies on male taekwondo athletes (Chiodo et al., 2012), it was showed a significant increase in countermovement jump (CMJ) performance at the end of the fighting despite the high prevalence of kicks (Tasika, Boutios, & Fisentzidis, 2009), as well as in female volleyball players (Marques, Tillaar, Vescovi, & Gonzalez-Badillo, 2008), where professional athletes increased their vertical jump performance after training. In particular it has been highlighted that combat does not attenuate the power performances of taekwondo athletes, and fatigue resistance reflects the stretch shortening cycle properties of the muscle. Specifically, it has been speculated that gender-related differences in concentrations of hormones was able to influence neuromuscular activation especially in male athletes (Bosco, Tihani, Rivalya, Parlato, Tranquilli, Pulvirenti, et al., 1996; Bosco, Colli, Bonomi, von Duvillard, & Viru, 2000; Chiodo, Tessitore, Cortis, Lupo, Ammendolia, Iona, et al., 2011). Therefore, CMJ trials performed before and after official hit ball matches could clarify if the same effect related to a potential neuromuscular activation could be speculated also for this team sport. Thus, in consideration of the absence of scientific literature related to hit ball competitions, the aim of this study was twofold: 1) to investigate the technical and tactical (i.e., winning and losing performance), and physiological (i.e., HR) profiles of Italian elite hit ball players (i.e., Serie A1-A2); and 2) to assess the effects of hit ball competition on players’ jump (i.e., CMJ) and strength (i.e., GS) performances.

Means and standard deviations (i.e., all teams, winning teams, losing teams), and differences (P≤0.05) of the technical and tactical aspects between winning and losing Italian elite hit ball teams (and Cohen’s d) were reported in table 2. In particular, only the occurrence of goals scored resulted significantly different (P=0.042) in terms of match outcome with a small ES (0.3). No difference between quarters emerged for HR values; however, a regular presence of values close to the 100% HRpeak (90-100%HRpeak: 25±10 min, 74±15%), and %HRmax (90-100%HRmax: 20±11, 57±25%; >100%HRmax: 4±8, 14±23%) were reported (Table 3). The predominance of high HR response has been highlighted also in relation to the maximal theoretical values (171-190bpm: 19±8 min; 57±21%; Figure 2).

Table 2
Means and standard deviations (SDs) (i.e., all teams, winning teams, losing teams), and differences (P≤0.05) between winning and losing (and Cohen’s d) of the technical and tactical aspects of the Italian elite hit ball teams.

Table 3
Mean and standard deviation (SD) of heart rate (HR) absolute duration (min) and percentage (over total duration of match) values in relation to the maximal theoretical (theoretical scale; 220-age) and HR pick recorded during the match (HR match pick scale; %HRpeak) parameters.

Figure 2
Mean and standard deviation (SD) of heart rate (HR) absolute duration (min; graphic a) and percentage (over total duration of match; graphic b) values in relation to the class of intensity (i.e., ≤130, 131-140, 141-150, 151-160, 161-170, 171-180, 181-190, 191-200, >200 bpm).

Finally, for CMJ, higher values were reported after match (36.2±6.3 cm) than those reported before match (33.1±4.8cm; P=0.001, moderate ES=0.6). Conversely, for GS related to the shooting upper-limb, lower values were recorded after match (433±102N) with respect to those recorded before (463±98N, P=0.018, small ES=0.3). For the other upper-limb, no difference emerged between the grip force performed before (452±99N) and after (442±95N) match.

Considering the absence of research investigating the hit ball performance, the present work represents the first analysis on this sport. For this reason this study had a twofold aims: 1) to investigate the technical, tactical, and physiological profiles of Italian elite hit ball players (i.e., Serie A1-A2); 2) to assess the effects of hit ball competition on players’ CMJ and GS performances. Similarly to previous studies on team sports players (Glazier, 2010; Lupo et al., 2012, 2016), an integrated experimental approach including all these aspects (i.e., technical, tactical and HR profiles, and CMJ and GS performances) in both pre-before and after matches is able to provide a good picture of the hit ball performance, even providing interesting aspects, which could be referred in favour of contiguous sports.

Although no particular results emerged between winning and losing teams’ technical and tactical performance, hit ball coaches could benefit from these results. As expected, the occurrences of goals reported an effect in terms of match successful. However, despite no other effect emerged between winning and losing teams, valuable information is also provided by the other indicators, regardless of the latter rationale and benefiting from general descriptive data. In particular, considering the high number of ball possessions (i.e., around 300 per team) performed during a match of around 31 min, it could speculate that hit ball is characterized by quick game actions. In addition, hit ball team actions were mainly played by means of 1 pass between 2 players, with hits performed from the attacking zone, thus highlighting a tendency to play simple playing patterns (2 players-1 pass) and to effectuate hits from the closest zone with respect to the opponents’ goal. Nevertheless, the majority of hits ends out of the goal target, pointing out how performing hits in goal is highly contrasted by the 5 opponent players. The technical analysis of hits showed that the “bowling” execution is the most adopted one, probably because it is the most comfortable to shot the ball with the highest power. Finally, the game infringements occur with a low frequency (i.e., around 7%) with respect to the total rallies performed during a hit ball match by a single team.

Italian elite hit ball match imposes a considerable HR response on players, which resulted higher than in other return sport performances such as elite volleyball (Bara Filho, de Andrade, Nogueira, & Nakamura, 2013) and tennis (Fernandez et al., 2006), probably for the above mentioned quickness and duration of the game actions, despite these are not analyzed. In line to this interpretation, exercise intensity recorded during Italian elite hit ball matches is often reported at the highest normalized (i.e., 91-100% of the theoretical and HR match peak scales) and absolute (i.e., 181-190 bpm) levels with reduced occurrences for the lowest intensities, tending to speculate that this performance is not characterized by substantial rest periods which are mostly due to short breaks between rallies, rather than unsatisfactory players’ recovery capability. In addition, the latter suggestion is also supported by the absence of any difference in comparing HRs related to the four quarters. In fact, the absence of any HR decline at the final quarters highlights that hit ball players are able to maintain a high exercise intensity for all match duration.

Similarly to other situational sports, the effects of competition were tested in terms of jump (Chiodo et al., 2011, 2012; Marques et al., 2008) capability. In particular, despite time-motion analysis in elite hit ball player has not been studied, from the HR evaluation and technical and tactical analysis, it could be speculated that elite hit ball players usually perform quick movements at high intensity which determine substantial grades of fatigue on lower limbs. However, despite a small ES, the significant improvement of the jump capability reported by the elite hit ball players at the end of the game suggests an alternative interpretation. For instance, in elite taekwondo performance (Chiodo et al., 2011, 2012), which is highly characterized by a high occurrence of kicks (Tornello, Capranica, Chiodo, Minganti, & Tessitore, 2013; Casolino, Cortis, Lupo, Chiodo, Minganti, & Capranica, 2012), the improvements of jump trials at the end of matches were interpreted in favour of a high neuromuscular activation of the lower limbs determined by the match performance. Similarly, in female volleyball players, a neuromuscular actiovation has been speculated in response to training (Marques et al., 2008). Therefore, in line to these studies (Chiodo et al., 2011, 2012; Marques et al., 2008), it could be inferred that hit ball match does not attenuate the power performances in their elite athletes’ lower limbs, but is probably characterized by an intermittent exercise alternating all-out performances with sufficient active recovery which is able to enhance the postmatch neuromuscular function of athletes.

Although the same experimental design of CMJ trials has been also provided on GS ones, hit ball players performed lower strength levels at the end of match with respect to those of the session prior to competition. In particular, the attenuation in GS observed at the end of hit ball competition on the shooting upper limb suggests that the frequent use of this upper limb in performing hits toward the opponents’ goal imposes substantial demands upon the corresponding musculature. Despite, similarly to CMJ trials, difference between GS trials were associated to a small ES, this finding confirms previous results which showed that performance impose strong and frequent concussions on upper limbs (Chiodo et al., 2011, 2012), whereas no evident relationship between competition and GS decline seems emerged in those disciplines where the use of upper limbs is frequent but not related to concussion (Cortis, Tessitore, Lupo, Pesce, Fossile, Figura, et al 2011; Lupo et al., 2012). Nevertheless, this interpretation is not strengthened by the absence of any difference in the before and after match GS trials effectuated with the other hit ball players’ upper limb. In fact, despite players often contrast opponents’ hits by opposing their upper limbs (even from reduce distances) during defensive hit ball actions, the same picture is not showed. Therefore, further studies could promote a clarification of this issue in hit ball as well as in other sports where the use of upper limbs refers to different performance demands.

However, relevant limitations characterize the present study. Firstly, the absence of any study specifically focused on hit ball limits the interpretation of the results, making possible comparisons only with other similar sports. Secondly, the number of matches and players monitored in terms of HR were quite reduced, limiting the reliability and interpretation of these results. Therefore, further studies involving a larger number of hit ball players could increase and promote knowledge about this sport and other adjacent return disciplines, also supporting new and alternative practice, education methods, and performance planning. In particular, more technical and tactical data are needs to promote analyses specifically orientated on different match phases (Gómez et al., 2014) or margins of victory (Lupo & Tessitore, 2016), as well as further studies on alternative analysis such as matche effects on inter-limb coordination (Tessitore, Perroni, Cortis, Meeusen, Lupo, & Capranica, 2011) or time motion analysis (Conte, Favero, Lupo, Francioni, Capranica, & Tessitore, 2015). Finally, considering that the present study provided the first model to gather information in hit ball performance, further studies could be provided by replicating the same analysis in other samples of subjects (i.e., different genders, competition levels, age categories).

Although the present study is the first attempt to provide data on hit ball performance, this integrated analysis represents valuable practical references for coaches working on this sport as well as other adjacent return sports. Findings related to technical and tactical aspects and HR response, as well as competition effects on jump and strength capabilities could effectively contribute in planning training with a higher awareness and coherence to the performance profile. In particular, hit ball coaches should provide training sessions which mainly consider high intensity of game, with quick movements and ball actions, trying to simultaneously develop technical and conditional capabilities. Nevertheless, considering that high HR response is regularly high during match, exclusive conditional training session should be also planned to specifically stimulate and develop anaerobic energy system and aerobic capacity to obtain a satisfactory performance in terms of high speed of game and movement, and recovery capability during breaks among rallies, respectively (Chiodo et al., 2011). In addition, according to the competition effects on CMJ and GS trails, an opportune activation of lower limb muscles, as well as maintaining of a high level of strength of the shooting upper limb, could benefit the optimization of elite hit ball performance.