4. Discussion
The most important finding of this study was that the youth sport categories investigated here were defined by largely distinct
sport participation characteristics. This observation confirms our main hypothesis which stipulated that sport participation patterns would be different in team, racket and individual sports. Moreover, the methodology applied here allowed for identification of variations of weekly load over the sport season. Additionally, differences of several sport participation characteristics related to age could be clearly highlighted. Therefore, this approach demonstrated its sensitivity in describing the sport participation pattern within a large panel of sport disciplines and appears to be an appropriate tool to follow training load in youth sport. The method was originally proposed by Foster and subsequently validated to quantify
exercise training in adult endurance sports, high-intensity sports team and racket sports. Nevertheless, to the
authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to compare training load in different youth sport disciplines using the same methodology. Overall, athletes engaged in racket sports reported the highest volume and the highest intensity, while those engaged in team sports exhibit the lowest weekly load. Additionally, subjective intensity and training load increased progressively with age. However, no difference was found when comparing young male and female athletes, demonstrating similar training load exposure for a given age and sport category. This observation is in accordance with previous work comparing training volume in girls and boys.