Time-motion analysis of elite field hockey during several games in succession: a tournament scenario M Spencer 1,3, C Rechichi 2, S Lawrence 2, B Dawson 1, D Bishop 1 & C Goodman 1 1Team Sport ResearchGroup, School of Human Movement and ExerciseScience,The University of Western Australia, Crawley, ~Western Australia. Western Australian Institute of Sport, Mt Claremont, Western Australia. 3Department of Physiology,Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra,Australia. International field hockey tournaments may require teams to play three games within a period of four days. Therefore, there is potential for residual fatigue to affect the movement patterns of players during subsequent games. The purpose of this study was to document changes in time-motion analysis of 14 elite male field hockey players during three games within a period of four days during an international tournament. In addition, the nature of and any changes in repeated-sprint activity were investigated using a criteria of a minimum of three sprints with a mean recovery duration between sprints of < 21 s. The percent of total game time spent standing significantly increased across all three games (7.4_+.2, 11.2+_2.7 and 15.6+_5.6%, respectively, P<0.05). Conversely, the percent time spent jogging sig- nificantly decreased from game 1 to game 2 and from game 1 to game 3 (40.5_+7.3, 34.8±7.4 and 29.4_+5.7%, respectively, P<0.05}. Furthermore, the percent time in striding significantly increased from game 1 to game 3 and from game 2 to game 3 (4.1_+1.3, 5.1_+0.9 and 5.8_+1,4%, respectively, P<0.05). Changes in mean motion frequency and duration were recorded across games for the motions of standing, striding and sprinting. The frequency of exercise bouts that met the criteria for 'repeated-sprint' decreased across the three games [17, 11 and 8, respectively). In summary, the results suggest that when elite field hockey players play three games within four days there are significant changes in time-motion analysis. (J Sci Med Sport 2005;8:4:382-391) Corresponding author: mspencer@wais.org.au Introduction Although there have been many studies that have investigated the movement patterns of team-sport performance 1,2, no studies to date have investigated the movement patterns of two or more games within a few days (ie, a tournament scenario). While the majority o,f time-motion analysis studies have examined a 'one-off performance 3, some studies have investigated two to three games played over a period of one month to an entire season 1,2. While the analysis of two or more games over an extended period of time adds to our understanding of team-sport performance, it does not provide an insight into changes in movement patterns when games are played on consecutive days or within a few days of each other. Fatigue during the latter stages of team-sport performance has been reported in several studies. A significant decrease in the total distance covered during the second half of a game compared to the first half has been observed in soccer competition 2. If subsequent competition is undertaken with minimal recovery (ie, two games in two days), it is possible that recovery may be 382