Background/Purpose Youth sports play a significant public health role as a provider of physical activity (PA) for children. The largest youth sports organization is US Youth Soccer with 3.2 million players. The purpose of the study was to compare youth soccer players' MVPA during matches played according to US Youth Soccer guidelines and during similar matches but without field boundaries.
Method The participants in this study included 144 U6 youth soccer players (M age = 4.6; SD = .64) randomly assigned to 24 co-ed teams. The System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time (McKenzie, Sallis, & Nader, 1991) was used to record PA levels during matches. A counterbalanced design was employed to mitigate carryover effects and a total of 72 matches were coded (36 with boundaries and 36 without).
Analysis/Results A 2 (age) x 2 (condition) repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to compare the effect of the age of youth soccer players on their MVPA in matches played with and without boundaries. Playing matches without the boundaries increased MVPA for both 4 year old and 5 year old soccer players with main effect of boundaries condition: F(1, 22) = 139.05, p<0.0001, η2 = .863. The interaction effect was not significant F(1, 22) = 3.03, p=0.96.
Conclusions The results suggest that allowing soccer players under the age of six to play matches without boundaries significantly increases their MVPA. It is therefore recommended that US Youth Soccer allow modification of law 9 (ball in and out of play) for U6 players.
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