Effect of 3-week progressive overloading and 1-week tapering on performance, internal training load, stress tolerance and heart rate variability in under-19 Brazilian badminton players

Objective: This study aimed to determine the effect of 3-week progressive overloading and 1-week tapering during a preseason on performance, internal training load, stress tolerance, and heart rate variability in under-19 Brazilian badminton players. Material and method: Eight male under-19 badminton players (age 16.1 ± 0.6 years; height 1.68 ± 7.7 m; body mass 57.2 ± 5.8 kg; body mass index 20.3 ± 2.5 kg∙m-2; body fat 8.0 ± 2.7 %), competing at the state level had physical and physiological monitored over four weeks during pre-season. Players underwent a badminton-specific movement agility test, 5-m multiple shuttle test, Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery test level 1, and performed vertical jumps before and after the pre-season. During the training, the heart rate variability and internal training load were monitored daily, and weekly were stress tolerance was recorded by psychometric responses. Results: The players showed significant improvements in all performance variables assessed after the training period. The internal training load during overloading was higher (1635 ± 109.9; 2490 ± 124; 2850 ± 210 AU) compared to tapering (1335 ± 100 AU). The stress tolerance decreased during overloading (4.0 ± 0.7; 8.2 ± 1.3; 10.1 ± 1.4) and increased during tapering (5.5 ± 1.5). In addition, higher internal training load during overloading resulted in a greater reduction in root-mean-square difference of successive R-R intervals (lnRMSSDmean) (4.2 ± 0.2; 4.1 ± 0.1; 4.0 ± 0.1 ms) and a smaller coefficient of variation (lnRMSSDcv) (4.5 ± 2.6; 2.1 ± 1.2; 1.4 ± 0.9 %), and the significant reduction in the internal training load during tapering led to a decrease in lnRMSSDmean (1.3 ± 0.5 ms). Conclusions: Our results suggest that using badminton training programs during the pre-season, including intermittent high-intensity actions with progressive overloading followed by a tapering is sufficient to result in positive adaptations in performance and led to adaptative changes in internal training load, stress tolerance, and heart rate variability.