The purpose of the present study was to examine the heart rate responses during small-sided games with different\nnumber of players. Sixteen professional soccer players were evaluated for body fat (%) using the skin fold thickness at\nthree sites, VO2 max and running velocity at the lactate threshold using an incremental treadmill protocol. %HRmax was\nmeasured during four-, five-, six-, seven-, and eight-a side soccer games. The four-a-side game showed significantly\n(p<0.05) higher %HRmax in comparison to the other small-sided games. On the other hand, the %HRmax of the\neight-a-side game was significantly lower (p<0.05) than three-, four-, five-, six-, and seven-a-side game. The intensity\nof small-sided games decreases as the number of players increase. The monitoring of heart rate during small-sided\ngames combined with laboratory VO2 max tests is a possible way to define target training intensity zones.
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