The Danish sports scientist and former footballer Dr. Jens Bangsbo, who is also known as the inventor of the most talked about Yo-Yo test feels that the test is good enough to judge a player’s fitness capacity, its best used to optimize training and improve endurance. However, he also cautioned the people to use the test for a selection criterion.
Recently, Dr. Bangsbo had an interaction with The Indian Express and he commented on its benefits and uses.
When asked about the current debate related to the test in India, Dr. Bangsbo said, “The Yo-Yo is a very good tool to get an idea about fitness capacity of an athlete. But the question is whether skill and mental capabilities are also important in a particular sport. Of course, there should be a basic fitness level for them to execute their skills well. I hear that 16.1 is set as the benchmark and I should say that it’s not very harsh or too high. It’s pretty okay. Extremely fit footballers hit more than 20, sometimes 21 also. In any case, the capacity of a player and the sport which he is playing needs to be factored in to arrive at an ‘ideal’ benchmark.”
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The former footballer also gave his take on the usage of the fitness test for selection, he said, “You have to be careful about using this as the sole test for selection. You have to be always careful in using it as a selection criterion in sports like cricket. It’s not bad, though, to have a lower level (16.1 is a lower spectrum.) as everybody needs to have a minimum level of fitness. But I would say you have to be careful; as there are other qualities that one seeks for a sportsman.”
Commenting his opinion further, the former Danish player said, “This is a useful tool to find out how we train and how to improve the training to get the players fitter. This is how it is used by football clubs and that’s the constructive way. Since the level (16.1) isn’t that high, I can sense that they are expecting a minimum fitness level in their players. You may say that a player can perform well despite not reaching that level but as a team, if it wants a certain minimum fitness level as part of its culture, 16.1 isn’t tough. “
Dr. Bangsbo also said that a player needs to be well-recovered before giving the test as it will be difficult for an athlete to rush into the test if he has done a lot of work before that.
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Talking about the need for inventing the game, Dr. Bangsbo said, “All the tests in the 90s, especially in football, were continuous running tests. Run for 12 mins or whatever and you never stop which is different from any intermittent sport like football or basketball where a player stops and runs a lot. We needed to have a specific test. It should also not last too long; if it’s for 25 minutes, it’s not a good test. So I devised this yo-yo for that reason.”
The assistant coach of the Juventus FC concluded by stating that he has no idea about the game of cricket, however, he has watched a few games. He also stressed on the fact that amidst of all this debate in India, this is an opportunity for players to see how to optimize the training to improve fitness and use this as a tool for the same.
