Abstract:
Time-motion analysis has been extensively used to provide an insight into the
movement patterns of athletes in team sports. However, few studies have
indicated whether analysis involved breaks in play, or all the activities within
the standard clock-time. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to
differentiate whether differences existing between clock-time and match-time
time-motion analysis had an affect on the results. Data was collected from the
Australian National Futsal Team. Analysis was initially conducted against the
actual playing clock-time of 40 min, then on a match-time of 70 min including
all actions and breaks in play, excluding half-time and time-out intervals.
When comparing match-time to clock-time data, there was a 16% greater total
overall distance covered, a 6.9% increase in the time spent in low-intensity
activities, and a change in activity every 4.00 s vs. 3.28 s, respectively. There
was little change in the high-intensity activities from clock-time to match-time
comparison. As clock-time data may misrepresent the movement patterns of
the game, it is important to establish a standard method of analysis, namely
based on match-time data. This may have implications on similar sports based
on clock-time such as water polo, basketball, ice hockey and handball.
