Many sports fans and organisations often engage in discussions and marketing ploys that compare sports with one another, in the study presented, the author looks to compare the heart rate responses of tennis, badminton and squash with special reference to the skill level and ages of the participants.
The data used for the squash and badminton was obtained in earlier studies that have a similar research design, therefore, the following method section only relates to the data collection of the tennis group.
Method – How the authors conducted the test.
For this study the authors selected 42 male subjects (n=42) and were placed in three groups.
Highly skilled – won various major tournaments with extensive playing experience.
Medium skilled – Considerable playing experience, had not won a major tournament.
Low skilled – Minimal background/tennis experience.
Prior to the study taking place, all players aerobic fitness was tested via sub-maximal cycle ergometer test. Maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) was then calculated. Within two days of testing, subjects competed in a 30minute game of tennis against a player in the same skill group. A 10-minute warm up was given. Heart rate was tracked throughout the game and expressed as a % of their predicted heart rate max (PHRM).
Results - what did the authors find.
As can be seen in the Table 1, total playing time (time that the ball was in play) varied between each sport. Squash and badminton had a total of 15 and 10 minutes of total playing time, whilst tennis had 5 minutes respectively. It is important to note that court geometry and rules may have had a significant influence on the total time played e.g. tennis has faults and therefore longer times could have been taken between serves and to retrieve the ball, whilst in squash the ball is confined to the small space and the margin for error is larger. Also, as skill level increases in tennis, so does the potential for the serves effectiveness i.e. aces.
The authors noted that skill level was the only significant factor in predicting rally length for squash players which is supported in table 1. Whereby the medium and highly skilled squash players played for a significantly longer period of time than the less skilled with fewer rallies.
As it regards the heart rates, the above figure demonstrates that on average squash players operate at a higher percentage of their heart rate max comparative to badminton and tennis. The exception being highly skilled badminton players. One reason as to why this may be the case is that squash has a lower margin for error which may increase the rally length. Another reason could be that squash is played in an enclosed space, this could allow rallies to started quicker than tennis or badminton as it takes less time to retrieve the ball.
Lastly, the authors made a note about using sports to increase aerobic fitness:
Using 75% of PMHR as the criterion for maintaining or improving aerobic fitness, the results of our three studies indicate that an individual needs to be selective in the choice of sports. For skilled players the game of badminton offers sufficient activity for fitness maintenance or improvement. Playing squash, however, provides high levels of activity regardless of the playing level of the participants. Tennis may have value in improving or maintaining fitness levels of individuals who are initially low in V02 max but of limited value to individuals above a V02 max of 35ml.kg.min.
Limitations:
A limitation to this comparison study is the criteria in which skill level was determined. This would be difficult to uniformly compare different sports accurately.
For a link to the full article, click here.
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Reference:
Docherty, D. (1982). A comparison of heart rate responses in racquet games. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 16(2), 96-100.