The effects of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) in improving VO2 max football student activity unit, University of Musamus

Abstract

Objective

This study aims to determine the effect of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) in improving VO₂ Max in Football Students Activity Unit, University of Musamus.

Method

This research is an experimental study with one group pretest and posttest design research. The population in this study was Football Students Activity Unit, the University of Musamus, which numbered 22 students who were the subjects of the study. Data retrieval technique is by tests and measurements. The instrument used is a multi-stage fitness test (bleep test). The students were given HIIT; it carried out twice a week for four weeks. Analysis of the data used is using t-test at 0.05% as the significance level.

Result

Based on the results, the number of pretests showed on 39.6773. While at the posttest after there was an improvement, the number showed on 48.5863. Based on the results of data analysis on the hypothesis in the study, it was found that there was a significant effect of HIIT in improving VO₂ Max football student activity unit, University of Musamus, it was indicated by the score of t-count that higher than t-table (13.015 > 2.080).

Conclusion

There was a significant effect of the HIIT in improving football students’ VO₂ of Max at University of Musamus.

Introduction

Football is a very popular sport with all walks of life throughout the world, and it has a lot of followers and sympathizers from children, adolescents, adults and even parents, both men, and women, so this sport becomes part of the lifestyle. Society in the world considers football as a medium to create life satisfaction in terms of health, entertainment, or achievement.¹

Today, football is not just entertainment sports, but have been demanded to have the highest achievement. High achievement can only be achieved with systematically planned exercises and carried out continuously under the supervision and guidance of a professional trainer. Given the fun and love of society for football, it is only natural that the coaches of football are required to continue to improve themselves with knowledge and seek experience for the advancement of football, especially now football can be used as a business, looking for work, and also used as propaganda for companies or agencies requires popularity from the community so that they always want to fulfil the people's will and passion through soccer.

Football students stated that to be able to survive in the game they must-have elements of physical conditions, including strength, flexibility, speed, and endurance.² Between these various physical conditions, endurance is the most important because the prime endurance in an athlete can maintain the strength and speed of the athlete and other physical conditions for a long time. Football athletes who have the condition of prime durability will support the performance of athletes during training or competition in an effort to achieve peak performance.

The importance of endurance in football is the goal so that players are able to survive in playing it without experiencing fatigue. It is related to the game of football that requires cardiorespiratory endurance. According to Djoko (2000), cardiac lung resistance or also called cardiorespiratory is functional ability of the heart-lung to supply oxygen for muscle work for a long time.³ A football player who has good heart resistance, will not experience fatigue quickly when playing football. Conversely, players who do not have good cardiac endurance will be obvious in matches on the field, these players will experience a decrease in stamina, strength, speed, and concentration, and many make fundamental mistakes that can harm the player himself and of course for the team.

Heart lung endurance quality is expressed by VO₂ Max, according⁴ VO₂ Max is the maximum oxygen uptake or the ability and capacity of a person to use as much oxygen as possible when doing activities. The fast or slow fatigue of a person can be estimated from the poor VO₂ Max capacity and oxygen needed by the muscles in carrying out any heavy or mild activity. The more oxygen absorbed by the body, the better the performance of the muscles at work so that the residual substances that cause fatigue will be fewer in number.

Someone who has good endurance and stamina has a high VO₂ Max value.⁵ VO₂ Max is the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen throughout the body for a long period of time. VO₂ Max for a sports athlete is important to improve good physical work, so VO₂ Max is very important for sports athletes, no exception for soccer players. According to the theory presented by Ferryanto (2010), VO₂ Max can also be called the maximum consumption of oxygen or maximum oxygen uptake or aerobic capacity, which means maximum capacity is the maximum capacity of the body to obtain and use oxygen during exercise increase, thus indicating one's physical fitness.⁶

Method

This research has studied the comparison between VO₂ Max pretest and posttest in Students’ Football Unit-University of Musamus. The main reason for taking football students as research sample was because there was an indication that the students had low VO₂ Max. This study used experimental research, meaning it finds a special variable influences to another which aim to connect the causality. This study utilized one group pretest-posttest in getting strong design to compare the result before and after given the treatment⁷ tells that population consists of object or subject in conclusion. As the representative of population, sample has the rule to present the data of the study and there were 22 students as sample.

Results

Mastering football techniques is necessary to improve the skills to play properly and correctly. There are basic techniques in playing football such as trapping, shooting, passing, heading, and dribbling. According to Herwin (2004), the game of soccer includes two basic motion abilities or techniques that must be possessed and controlled by players, namely motion or technique without a ball and motion or technique with a ball.⁸

In addition to mastering basic techniques, soccer players are also required to have excellent physical condition. Because football is one of the dynamic sports, the prime physical is a basic requirement that must be owned by a soccer player. Football games are required to run, to chase, lead, grab the ball from opponent, move in all directions quickly, move legs and arms and head properly, as well as jumping. Excellent physical conditions are needed for training, and the exercises carried out must be carried out well, correctly, programmed and continuous so that the training objectives can be achieved and help achieve maximum performance.

There are five components of physical fitness⁹; (a) cardiorespiratory endurance, (b) muscular endurance, (c) muscular strength, (d) body composition, and (e) flexibility.

To find out the ability of students to play the basic techniques of soccer it is necessary to have physical measurements as mentioned above. The measurement results are divided into two, pretest and posttest shown in Tables 1 and 2 respectively.

Table 1.

Students’ VO₂ max pretest score.

Name	Age	Position	Pretest result		VO2 max	Description
			Level	Shuttle
MR	18 Y	Keeper	5	1	29.8	Poor
AB	19 Y	Keeper	4	8	29.1	Poor
JW	20 Y	Centre Back	8	1	40.2	Good
TJ	18 Y	Centre Back	6	10	36.4	Fair
Al	19 Y	Centre Back	5	9	32.9	Poor
JL	21 Y	Centre Back	7	9	39.6	Good
BW	20 Y	Centre Back	10	7	49	Great
MW	20 Y	Mid Fielder	8	3	40.8	Good
MA	18 Y	Mid Fielder	8	2	40.5	Good
HM	17 Y	Mid Fielder	10	9	49.6	Great
WS	18 Y	Mid Fielder	8	1	40.2	Good
MF	19 Y	Mid Fielder	8	10	42.9	Good
JM	18 Y	Mid Fielder	7	9	39.6	Good
JS	18 Y	Mid Fielder	7	8	39.2	Good
RP	19 Y	Striker	6	10	36.4	Fair
MD	20 Y	Striker	8	2	40.5	Good
PG	18 Y	Striker	8	6	41.8	Good
MA	19 Y	Striker	7	7	38.9	Good
MA	18 Y	Striker	8	6	41.8	Good
HJ	19 Y	Striker	7	8	39.2	Good
HD	19 Y	Striker	9	5	44.9	Good
FE	18 Y	Striker	7	9	39.6	Good
Total					872.9
Average score					39.6773
Highes score					49.6
Lowest score					29.1

Table 2.

Students’ VO₂ max posttest score.

Name	Age	Position	Posttest result		VO2 max	Description
			Level	Shuttle
MR	18 Y	Keeper	8	3	40.8	Good
AB	19 Y	Keeper	8	10	42.9	Good
JW	20 Y	Centre Back	10	3	47.7	Great
TJ	18 Y	Centre Back	10	7	49	Great
Al	19 Y	Centre Back	9	11	46.8	Great
JL	21 Y	Centre Back	10	11	50.2	Great
BW	20 Y	Centre Back	11	6	51.9	Excellent
MW	20 Y	Mid Fielder	10	11	50.2	Great
MA	18 Y	Mid Fielder	11	1	50.5	Great
HM	17 Y	Mid Fielder	11	11	53.4	Excellent
WS	18 Y	Mid Fielder	11	1	50.1	Great
MF	19 Y	Mid Fielder	9	9	46.2	Great
JM	18 Y	Mid Fielder	10	11	50.2	Great
JS	18 Y	Mid Fielder	11	3	51.1	Excellent
RP	19 Y	Striker	9	8	45.8	Great
MD	20 Y	Striker	10	9	49.6	Great
PG	18 Y	Striker	9	7	45.5	Great
MA	19 Y	Striker	10	5	48.4	Great
MA	18 Y	Striker	11	2	50.8	Great
HJ	19 Y	Striker	10	8	49.3	Great
HD	19 Y	Striker	11	4	51.4	Excellent
FE	18 Y	Striker	10	1	47.1	Great
Total					1068.9
Average score					48.586364
Highes score					53.4
Lowest score					40.8

Based on the results of physical measurements as presented in Tables 1 and 2, the value of “t” will be found which then becomes the material to draw conclusions (Table 3).

Table 3.

“t” score.

Name	VO2 max		D	D	d^2
	X1	XII
MR	40.8	29.8	11	2.091	4.372281
AB	42.9	29.1	13.8	4.891	23.92188
JW	47.7	40.2	7.5	−1.409	1.985281
TJ	49	36.4	12.6	3.691	13.62348
Al	45.5	41.8	3.7	−5.209	27.13368
JL	48.4	38.9	9.5	0.591	0.349281
BW	46.8	32.9	13.9	4.991	24.91008
MW	50.2	39.6	10.6	1.691	2.859481
MA	51.9	49	2.9	−6.009	36.10808
HM	50.2	40.8	9.4	0.491	0.241081
WS	50.5	40.5	10	1.091	1.190281
MF	53.4	49.6	3.8	−5.109	26.10188
JM	50.1	40.2	9.9	0.991	0.982081
JS	46.2	42.9	3.3	−5.609	31.46088
RP	50.2	39.6	10.6	1.691	2.859481
MD	51.1	39.2	11.9	2.991	8.946081
PG	45.8	36.4	9.4	0.491	0.241081
MA	49.6	40.5	9.1	0.191	0.036481
MA	50.8	41.8	9	0.091	0.008281
HJ	49.3	39.2	10.1	1.191	1.418481
HD	51.4	44.9	6.5	−2.409	5.803281
FE	47.1	39.6	7.5	−1.409	1.985281
TOTAL	1068.9	872.9	196	0.002	216.5382

Description:

After getting the t-count for the two parties test at a significant level of 0.05%, its scores 13.015 while the t-table score showed 2.080. To reject the null hypothesis (ho), the t-count value has to equal to or higher than t-table. If we compare it, with a significant level of 0.05%, t-count is higher than t-table (13.015 > 2.080). Based on the hypothesis test above, (Ho) is rejected and the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. It can be concluded that there was an effect of the HIIT in improving football students’ VO₂ Max in Musamus University as presented in Table 4.

Table 4.

Calculation percentage improvement.

Mean pretest	Mean posttest	Mean difference	Percentages
		(Mean posttest – mean pretest)	(Mean Df/mean pretest × 100%)
39.6773	48.586364	8.909	22.45%

Based on Table 4, it can be seen that the percentage increase to 22.45%.

Conclusion

Based on the data analysis, we found that there was a significant effect of the HIIT in improving football students’ VO₂ Max in Musamus University. It indicated by the t-count value that higher than t-table (13.015 > 2.080) with a significance value of 0.000 smaller than the significance of 0.05 (0.000 < 0.05). This results of data analysis revealed that the average score at the posttest was higher than the pretest (48.5863 > 39.6773). It means that the HIIT is effectively applied to improve football students’ VO₂ Max. Furthermore, based on the results of the percentage calculation, the results showed that football students’ VO₂ Max has improved by 22.45%.

The results showed us the HIIT has an effect on improving the VO₂ Max of football students in the University of Musamus. VO₂ Max has a big role in football while performances of the players when the match takes place. With a good cardiovascular endurance a football player will not easily feel tired and be able to optimize the techniques they have.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.