Physical performance in young female football athletes: a systematic review

Authors:
Open Access
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The objective was to analyze the physical performance in female soccer players. A systematic review was performed by searching MedLine (PubMed), SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Lilacs (BVS) and SciELO databases for observational studies performed on female soccer players under 18 years of age, who underwent neuromuscular and/or cardiorespiratory physical testing. Of the 934 studies found, 19 were included. The sample size in the studies ranged from 11 to 499 players, with total of 1879 athletes, aged between 9 and 17 years. Neuromuscular tests were more used than cardiorespiratory ones. In conclusion, jumps, linear velocity and change of direction were more used in the context of soccer played by women to determine performance in young athletes. However, cardiorespiratory capacity tests were used to a lesser extent, with a predominance of the level 1 yo-yo intermittent recovery test (YYIR1).