The relationship between shooting accuracy and pain perception across different heart rate zones in a youth basketball team

Abstract Fatigue can impair shooting accuracy in basketball, but how shooting accuracy and exercise-induced pain change across heart-rate-defined exercise intensities, and how they are related, remains unclear. This study examined free-throw and three-point shooting accuracy and perceived pain across progressively increasing heart-rate zones in youth basketball players. Twelve male basketball players (age 15.50 ± 0.52 years; training experience 4.42 ± 1.44 years) performed a 20-m shuttle run test that was paused at five target zones (Stages 1–5: 50–60% to 90–100% of age-predicted maximum heart rate [HRmax], 220 − age). At each stage, participants rated their pain on a 0–10 numerical pain rating scale and performed five free throws and five three-point shots. Data were analysed with Friedman tests (Kendall’s W), Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with exact p-values and Holm–Bonferroni correction, and Spearman correlations. From Stage 1 to Stage 5, free-throw performance decreased from 3.50 ± 0.52 (70.0%) to 1.67 ± 0.49 (33.3%) successful attempts (χ²(4) = 36.28, p < .001, W = 0.76) and three-point performance from 3.25 ± 0.62 (65.0%) to 0.58 ± 0.67 (11.7%) (χ²(4) = 34.92, p < .001, W = 0.73), whereas pain increased from 1.00 ± 0.74 to 4.92 ± 1.51 (χ²(4) = 47.30, p < .001, W = 0.99). For both shot types, performance in Stage 5 was lower than in all other stages (Holm-adjusted p ≤ .016). Pain was negatively correlated with three-point performance in Stage 4 (ρ = −0.85, Holm-adjusted p = .004); the correlation with free-throw performance in Stage 5 (ρ = −0.63, p = .030) was not significant after correction. In exploratory analyses, training experience was negatively correlated with pain in Stages 2 and 3 (ρ = −0.84, Holm-adjusted p = .012) but was not significantly associated with shooting performance after correction. During a progressive protocol, shooting accuracy declined and pain increased, with the largest decline at the highest stage, and higher pain was associated with lower three-point accuracy at 80–90% of predicted HRmax. Because the stages were performed in a fixed order, the effects of intensity cannot be separated from cumulative fatigue. These findings should be confirmed in larger samples using individually measured HRmax.