Investigation of speed, strength, power and football specific agility features in children and youth football players with different field tests

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the agility, speed, strength and power characteristics of football players between the ages of 10-17 by football-specific field tests according to age categories and to examine the relationship between these variables for each age category. Method: A total of 240 male football players from U10-U11-U12-U13-U14-U15-U16-U17 groups, who train for 3 days a week, participated in this study. Participants were measured height, body weight, body mass index, lean body mass, body fat percentage. Agility tests, 5m, flying 15m and 20 m sprint, active jump, squat jump, standing long jump and repeated running-based anaerobic sprint tests was applied. Differences and comparisons between age categories were analyzed with one-way analysis of variance and tukey test, respectively. The relationships between the variables were analyzed with the pearson correlation coefficient (r). SPSS package program was used to analyze data and error levels of α=0.01 and α=0.05 were taken into account. Results: As the age of the athletes increased in all age groups, it was determined that the physical characteristics, agility and agility with the ball, speed, strength and power values increased significantly (p<0.05), while there was no significant increase in the technical index and fatigue index. A significant relationship between flying 15 m and 20 m sprint values and agility, long jump, absolute peak power, absolute average power, relative peak power, relative average power was observed in all age groups (p<0.01). A significant relationships between 5 m sprint and absolute peak power, absolute average power, and relative peak power (p<0.05). In addition, the relationships between agility, speed, strength and power variables, it has been observed that the relationship size varies according to different age category. Conclusion: As a result, it was determined that agility, speed, power and strength characteristics in football players and the relations between them vary according to age categories. Keywords: football, child and youth, agility, speed, strength and power.