Anaerobic capacity assessment of junior basketball players after the pandemic lockdown in Romania

In the context of the pandemic period, basketball competitions have undergone changes in their organisational structure, so playing games in the form of a “bubble” tournament required adequate training. Due to the rapid pace of play during the “bubble” competitions, junior basketball players need to have very good anaerobic and aerobic capacity. Intensification of the competitive effort by increasing the speed of movement and execution, making fast breaks, performing bouncing passes and throws to the basket, fighting to recover the ball and using the active defence (pressing) all over the court imposes high demands on the body at the somatic and vegetative levels. The purpose of the present study is to assess the anaerobic capacity of junior players (U16) in the pre-competitive period, given that their training was interrupted between March and September 2020 by the legislative norms on sports activity due to the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania. The ascertaining study was conducted in January 2021 on the CSU Știința Bucharest team players aged 15-16 years. The tests applied to assess their anaerobic capacity consisted of Countermovement Jump (CMJ) and acceleration speed (5 m, 10 m and 15 m). The data were collected using the computerised Optojump and Tag Heurer - Chronoprinter 520 techniques.