Game Demands & the planner presets — evidence & provenance
Where the Game Demands numbers come from — and, in particular, whether the planner presets (Volume / Intensity / Sharpener / Recovery / Balanced) are grounded in research or are house heuristics. The short answer: the framework is well-supported published sport science; the exact percentages are our own coaching defaults, offered as a starting point the coach then tunes. This page separates those two so the working can be checked.
This mirrors Conditioning — evidence & provenance, using the same three tiers:
- [paper] — peer-reviewed research the tool implements directly.
- [practice] — an established S&C coaching method or coach resource (widely used, not always a single citable trial).
- [ours] — a pragmatic estimate or product decision we made, informed by the above but not lifted from a paper. These are the ones to scrutinise.
1. Planning training as a percentage of the game
The whole feature rests on one idea: the match is the reference, and each training day is planned as a fraction of what a game costs. This is not a product invention — it is exactly how elite team-sport load is quantified and prescribed.
- [paper] Stevens T.G.A., de Ruiter C.J., Twisk J.W.R., Savelsbergh G.J.P., Beek P.J. (2017). Quantification of in-season training load relative to match load in professional Dutch Eredivisie football players. Sci Med Footb 1(2):117–125. — The direct evidence for this feature. Training days are categorised by MD-minus (days before the match) and every load variable is expressed relative to match value (100%). Their measured pattern: total distance 67→35%, running 52→20%, high-speed running 38→15% as training approached the game — i.e. load is dialled down as a % of the game, and the different stressors are dialled down by different amounts. That is precisely the model the Game Demands planner implements (family dials, MD-minus presets).
- [practice] Akenhead R., Nassis G.P. (2016). Training Load and Player Monitoring in High-Level Football: Current Practice and Perceptions. Int J Sports Physiol Perform 11(5):587–593. — Survey of 41 high-level clubs: the MD-minus weekly structure and per-session load targeting is standard practice, and acceleration/total-distance/high-speed-distance are the load variables coaches actually track (which is why the planner's stressor families are locomotor / mechanical / speed).
2. The taper — why load drops toward the game (Sharpener / Intensity)
The descent from a high-load day far out to a short, sharp primer near the game is the taper, one of the most robustly supported findings in the training literature.
- [paper] Bosquet L., Montpetit J., Arvisais D., Mujika I. (2007). Effects of tapering on performance: a meta-analysis. Med Sci Sports Exerc 39(8):1358–1365. — 27 studies: performance is maximised by reducing training volume (~41–60%) while largely preserving intensity. This is exactly the shape of our near-game presets: Sharpener/Intensity cut locomotor volume hard (loco 35–60%) but hold speed high (75–85%) — you take the volume out, not the sharpness.
- [paper] The Stevens (2017) MD-minus gradient above is the same finding observed in the field: locomotor volume falls steeply toward MD-1, high-velocity and mechanical work fall less.
suggestPresetKey(daysToMatch) encodes this taper directly: ≥3 → Volume,
2 → Intensity, 1 → Sharpener, match/after → Recovery.
3. Dialling stressors independently (the family dials)
The planner's three separate family dials — locomotor, mechanical, speed — exist because the evidence says these systems can and should be loaded independently across a week ("cardiovascular vs muscle strain, lowered differently").
- [paper] Stevens et al. (2017) (above) measured this directly: accelerations and decelerations stayed much closer to match values (90→39%) than running distance did (52→20%) across the same MD-minus days. High-speed and mechanical load do not track locomotor volume — hence separate dials.
- [paper] Buchheit M., Laursen P.B. (2013). High-Intensity Interval Training, Solutions to the Programming Puzzle. Sports Med — Part I 43(5):313–338; Part II 43(10):927–954. — The "manipulate work:rest, intensity and mode per physiological target" framework: metabolic, neuromuscular and speed stressors are separable levers, not one load knob. (Also underpins the conditioning engine — see the conditioning evidence page.)
4. The positional reference is built from GAA match GPS
The per-position demand each preset scales from is not borrowed from soccer — it is computed from this squad's own Gaelic-football match GPS, and the position-line model matches the GAA literature.
- [paper] Malone S., Solan B., Collins K. (2017). The Running
Performance Profile of Elite Gaelic Football Match-Play. J Strength Cond Res
31(1):30–36. — 250 full-game data sets across 3 elite inter-county teams;
establishes GAA match running demands by position (total distance, HSR ≥17 km/h,
sprint distance ≥22 km/h, accelerations, peak speed) and the within-game
decrement. The evidence that a GAA game demand is real, position-specific, and
measurable from GPS — which is what
f_game_demands_profilereproduces per squad. - [paper] Malone S., Solan B., Collins K., Doran D.A. (2016). Positional Match Running Performance in Elite Gaelic Football. J Strength Cond Res 30(8). (PubMed 26694505) — positional differences in match running, supporting the six-line (GK/FB/HB/MF/HF/FF) positional reference.
5. The preset percentages themselves — [ours]
This is the part to scrutinise. The structure above is research-backed; the specific numbers in each preset are our defaults, chosen to encode those principles sensibly. No paper says "MD-3 locomotor should be 90% of game."
| Preset | MD-hint | locomotor | mechanical | speed | rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volume | MD-3 | 90% | 85% | 40% | build the tank — high volume, low top-end |
| Intensity | MD-2 | 60% | 60% | 85% | top-end exposure held high, volume eased |
| Sharpener | MD-1 | 35% | 35% | 75% | short & sharp primer — taper volume, keep sharpness |
| Recovery | MD+1 | 25% | 20% | 20% | flush |
| Balanced | — | 60% | 60% | 60% | even stressor across families |
- [ours] The values encode the direction the evidence gives (load far out, taper volume near the game, preserve speed into the primer) but the magnitudes are judgement, fully tunable — every preset only sets the dials; the coach then moves them, including per-metric overrides. A preset is a research-shaped starting point, not an algorithmic prescription.
- ⚠ known simplification. Stevens (2017) found accel/decel load is relatively preserved toward the game (90→39% of match), yet our Sharpener drops the mechanical family low (35%). We treat mechanical as a volume-like stressor in the presets for simplicity; a coach who wants to hold neuromuscular exposure into MD-1 should raise the mechanical dial (or its per-metric overrides). This is exactly the kind of default the per-metric overrides exist to correct.
- caveat on transfer. The taper/MD-minus evidence base is strongest in elite soccer; GAA has its own demands (pitch size, football vs hurling, dual-code weeks). Treat the presets as a translated starting point, not a GAA-validated protocol.
6. The season-phase bias — [ours]
seasonBias nudges a preset up or down by the active season phase (build ×1.15,
maintain ×1.0, taper ×0.85, recover ×0.7, etc.).
- [practice] The direction — accumulate in build blocks, reduce into a taper — is standard periodisation and consistent with the taper evidence above.
- [ours] The specific multipliers are our judgement, deliberately gentle (they move the starting dials; the coach owns the final numbers).
Reference list
Peer-reviewed entries were checked against their PubMed record, DOI, or publisher page in July 2026.
| # | Reference | Used for | Open |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stevens T.G.A. et al. (2017). Quantification of in-season training load relative to match load in professional Dutch Eredivisie football players. Sci Med Footb 1(2):117–125. | The "% of match, per MD-minus day" model + independent stressor dialling | doi · PDF |
| 2 | Bosquet L., Montpetit J., Arvisais D., Mujika I. (2007). Effects of tapering on performance: a meta-analysis. Med Sci Sports Exerc 39(8):1358–1365. | Taper shape (reduce volume, preserve intensity) — Sharpener/Intensity presets | doi |
| 3 | Akenhead R., Nassis G.P. (2016). Training Load and Player Monitoring in High-Level Football: Current Practice and Perceptions. Int J Sports Physiol Perform 11(5):587–593. | MD-minus weekly structure as standard practice; load variables tracked | PubMed 26456711 · doi |
| 4 | Malone S., Solan B., Collins K. (2017). The Running Performance Profile of Elite Gaelic Football Match-Play. J Strength Cond Res 31(1):30–36. | GAA match demands by position (the positional reference) | PubMed 27191694 |
| 5 | Malone S., Solan B., Collins K., Doran D.A. (2016). Positional Match Running Performance in Elite Gaelic Football. J Strength Cond Res 30(8). | Positional running differences (six-line model) | PubMed 26694505 |
| 6 | Buchheit M., Laursen P.B. (2013). HIIT, Solutions to the Programming Puzzle. Part I Sports Med 43(5):313–338; Part II 43(10):927–954. | Stressors as separable levers (family dials) | doi · PubMed 23832851 |
The [ours] items — the specific preset percentages, the mechanical-as-volume
simplification, and the seasonBias multipliers — have no external citation by
definition; that's exactly what the tag flags. They are defaults to start from,
not fixed prescriptions.