Heart rate and body temperature response of wheelchair basketball players in small-sided games

The purpose of this study was to analyze the physiological response of wheelchair basketball (WB) players during the different bouts of a training task (4 vs. 4). Twelve WB players participated in this study (25.3 ± 2.4 years). Five sessions of the small-sided games (SSG) were performed, with 4 sets each session and a rest interval of 2 min between each one. Significant differences were found (p<0.05) in heart rate peak (HRpeak) in the last three bouts in comparison to the first (169.5 ± 12.47, 170.78 ± 12.80, 170.03 ± 11.78 vs. 167.19 ± 11.74 beat•min-1). Mean HR (HRmean) showed a similar trend, but there were also significant differences (p<0.05) between the second and third bouts (156.37 ± 12.04 vs. 158.21 ± 11.82 beat•min-1). Body temperature remained constant during the first three bouts and showed a significant increase (p<0.05) in the fourth bout. During the SSG, HRmean was similar to that obtained in other studies of official matches, so they could represent an adequate training task for improving WB performance. However, special attention should be paid to the number of bouts performed in the training sessions as the physiological response was not constant.