Dissociations between coaches’ fatigue rating, athletes’ perceived fatigue, and objective training load

Players’ fatigue after practice is an important indicator of the actual training status for the coach. However, fatigue is not a unitary construct; it has objective (physiological) and perceived (experiential) aspects, which are not necessarily strongly related. The present study aimed to assess the association between coaches’ and athletes’ perception of fatigue and objectively assessed training load (TL). Participants were 61 elite players of five sport teams of two sports (basketball and football) and their coaches. Players’ and coaches’ perception of fatigue and objective data on TL provided by the Polar Team Pro system was obtained for 276 practice sessions overall. The association between coaches’ and athletes’ fatigue rating was .43 (p