The effect of bio-banding on the anthropometric, physical fitness and functional movement characteristics of academy soccer players

MacMaster, Calum; Portas, Matt; Parkin, Guy; Cumming, Sean; Wilcox, Chris; Towlson, Christopher

Abstract

The study examined if maturity status bio-banding reduces within-group variance in anthropometric, physical fitness and functional movement characteristics of 319, under-14 and under-15 players from 19 UK professional soccer academies. Bio-banding reduced the within-bio-banded group variance for anthropometric values, when compared to an aggregated chronological banded group (chronological: 5.1–16.7%CV; bio-banded: 3.0–17.3% CV). Differences between these bio-banded groups ranged from moderate to very large (ES = 0.97 to 2.88). Physical performance variance (chronological: 4.8–24.9%CV; bio-banded: 3.8–26.5%CV) was also reduced with bio-banding compared to chronological aged grouping. However, not to the same extent as anthropometric values with only 68.3% of values reduced across banding methods compared to 92.6% for anthropometric data. Differences between the bio-banded groups physical qualities ranged from trivial to very large (ES = 0.00 to 3.00). The number of functional movement metrics and %CV reduced by bio-banding was lowest within the ‘circa-PHV’ groups (11.1–44.4%). The proportion of players achieving the threshold value score of ≥ 14 for the FMS™ was highest within the ‘post-PHV’ group (50.0–53.7%). The use of maturity status bio-banding can create more homogenous groups which may encourage greater competitive equity. However, findings here support a bio-banding maturity effect hypothesis, whereby maturity status bio-banding has a heightened effect on controlling for characteristics which have a stronger association to biological growth.

Citation

MacMaster, C., Portas, M., Parkin, G., Cumming, S., Wilcox, C., & Towlson, C. (2021). The effect of bio-banding on the anthropometric, physical fitness and functional movement characteristics of academy soccer players. PLoS ONE, 16(11), Article e0260136. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260136

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 4, 2021
• Publication Date: Nov 29, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 23, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 27, 2022
• Journal: PLoS ONE
• Print ISSN: 1932-6203
• Electronic ISSN: 1932-6203
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 11
• Article Number: e0260136
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260136
• Keywords: Maturation; soccer; physical; bio-banding; Functional Movement Screen™
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3886577
• Additional Information: Data Availability Statement: All raw files are available from Repository@Hull (https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3763127).