Understanding the Multifaceted Affects of Workload, Psychological Readiness, and Recovery on Volume Load in Division 1 Female Soccer Athletes

The purpose of this research was to understand the affects that psychological readiness, and recovery have on external load in division 1 female soccer athletes. Sleep duration, sleep quality, soreness, stress, mood, fatigue, RPE, distance covered, active time, and GPS load were gathered from 31 division 1 female soccer athletes during preseason, in season, and post season training and competition days. Internal load can be a subjective or objective measure of how an individual responds to a stress placed on the body. Internal metrics consisted of athletes self-reporting their sleep duration and quality, soreness, stress, mood, fatigue and RPE rating for each training session and game. External load is an objective measure of the work, or physical stress placed on an athlete. External load metrics were measured using GPS, worn by each athlete during training and competition. Pearson's Correlation Coefficient was used to determine the linear relationship between RPE and sleep duration, sleep quality, soreness, stress, mood, fatigue, and volume load. Then a stepwise regression model was used to determine the multifaceted relationship, adding all statistically significant variables. Results of the analysis show that there is a strong relationship (Pearson's R=0.57) between RPE and volume load, accounting for 32% of variance in RPE (p<0.01). Additionally, sleep duration, sleep quality, mood and fatigue had a statistically significant correlation with RPE. When building a multiple linear regression model to understand the relationship between RPE and training load; RPE, sleep duration, and fatigue were statistically correlated with training load, and accounted for 33% of the variance in volume load (p<0.01).