Soccer coaching detrimental to health, says study

Life expectancy of the Bundesliga trainer is considerably shorter than the average persons, says the Aachen-based sports physician Dr Joachim Kugler who has researched the stress levels of soccer trainers together with researchers from Ruhr University of Bochum and the Medical High School at Hanover.

The researchers studied 17 coaches from the first two divisions of the German Football League during league matches.

The results were worrying, says Kugler. He found that coaches were kidding themselves in their own self-assessments of the state of their health. They tended to play down the stress factor whereas in fact the effects of the job to their health were grave.

Several of thetest results showed that during a match the stress hormone cortisol rose by two-and-a-half times more than its normal level irrespective of the state of the game.

Similar high stress hormone levels are found only in astronauts and brokers on the floor of the stock exchange.

The researchers took saliva samples from the coaches before, during and after a game. The results showed that the emotional and psychological pressure was at its greatest five minutes before half-time.

Worries about relegation or job dismissal increases the stress factor. One trainer even had five times the normal level of cortisol, an alarming level, say the specialists.

Kugler says the coaches fail abysmally when it comes to trying to overcome stress. He says their jobs could be compared to a high-level industrial position but unlike the business world there was no concept in soccer of stress management. "Trainers are simply badly trained," he said.

Yet scientific research into football is also in its infancy. A fresh researchattempt in Germany, the football research foundation, had to be postponed last December for lack of money.