Methods
Twenty-nine elite male ARF players (age: 22.9 ± 3.2 years;height: 188.0 ± 7.5 cm; weight: 86.7 ± 7.6 kg) participating in theAustralian Football League (AFL), the highest level of competitionin the sport, participated in the study. Matches were played on aweekly basis from March to September. A repeated measures sin-gle cohort longitudinal study design was employed. Approval ofthe study protocol was granted by the Deakin University HumanResearch Ethics Committee, with informed consent obtained fromparticipants before commencement of the study.