From Competition to Sport Specific Preparation in Handball

Many factors influence the performance in elite handball, amongst them being the game actions’ efficiency. The performance in handball game is influenced by a series of factors: specific preparation, physical fitness, constitution, anthropometry, nutrition, individual specific abilities, efficiency, team work, and ability to perform under pressure and to adapt to the changing conditions of the game, team tactic, social and cognitive factors. The aim of the study is to determine how the performance is influenced by the game actions’ efficiency during the top competitions and if there is any statistical significance between the European teams and the rest of the participating teams and to identify a benchmark of efficiency for specific game actions’ that will be useful for handball coaches. For the analysis of our data, we used descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation), analysis of variance (ANOVA) (the threshold was set at 0,05) and linear regression for identifying a pattern of connections amongst data collected in our study. 21 out of 36 situations achieved statistical significance for 0.05 level of p. The linear regression supports the statistical results of the variance analysis. These findings are useful for persons involved in handball training that they can use as a reference to assess the team and the individual performance, to plan the team's training in order to achieve values close to the mentioned ones in our study.