Is the Premier League Really the Most Physically Demanding?

The evolution of match tracking technologies over the past 10-15 years has allowed us to better understand the physical demands placed upon players during match-play.

Of all the domestic leagues in the world, The English Premier League is often considered the most physically demanding.

We often see players who come from different leagues to the EPL and initially struggle with the ‘pace’ of the game and physical requirements.

But what does the data show us?

The first detailed study about the demands of the EPL was back in 2007 by Johnny Bloomfield and colleagues using computerised time-motion analysis.

This well cited study by Chris Barnes and co found between 2006 - 2013, the high intensity running demands in the EPL increased by 30%.

A more recent study by Tom Allen at Arsenal found some further small to moderate increases in running load in the EPL between 2014-2019.

But how does the EPL compare to the other top 5 leagues in Europe?

This new study by Ryland Morgans and colleagues examined the differences in acceleration and deceleration demands between the EPL and the French Ligue 1.

The authors revealed players in the EPL performed significantly more accelerations and decelerations per minute than their Ligue 1 counterparts*.

Interestingly, there were no observed differences for centre forwards between the two leagues.

Bottom Line - The EPL is still arguably the most physically demanding league in the world. However, discrepancies between leagues may be less than first thought based on positional data.

* to note - GPS derived accelerations and decelerations have a higher degree of variability compared to other GPS metrics.

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James

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