Effects of conditioning activities and time of day on male elite football players

This study evaluated the effects of different warm-up protocols based on conditioning activity combined with stretching exercises at different times of the day. Participants (20 first league of Tunisian football players) performed four warm-up protocols on two times a day in the morning: 09:00-10:00 and in the evening: 16:00-17:00, with at least 2 days between test sessions. All groups followed the warm-up randomly at two different periods of the day on non-consecutive days. The four protocols included: Dynamic stretching (DS), Dynamic stretching + conditioning activity (DS + High-Intensity Sprints HSJ), Dynamic stretching + drop jump (DS + DJ), and control (CONT). The thirty-meter sprint performance after different stretching and potentiation based warm-up protocols was recorded. Two-way Permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) analysis was applied to examine the difference between warm-up protocols, the difference between the time of day and the interaction effect. The major finding revealed that 30 m sprint results and the exercise-induced temperature significantly differed from morning and evening stretching and potentiation-based warm-up protocols (statistically significant p < 0.05, and evening measurements were higher compared to the morning). In conclusion, and from a practical point of view, if the objective is to increase performance over a shorter period of time, each of these warm-up protocols can be useful. For the best improvement, DS + HSJ may be preferable both in the morning and the evening.