The burdens of sitting on the bench - comparison of absolute and relative match physical load between handball players with high and low court time and implications for compensatory training.

Wearables quantify the activity in team sports and indicate that players experience peak physical loads during competitions. Accordingly, players with limited court time in competitions will miss important training stimuli. The present study aimed to quantify these gaps in physical load in professional handball players. Activity of all players competing in the 2021/2022 Bundesliga (Germany) was tracked using Kinexon LPS sensors. Gaps in physical load were quantified comparing the 25% of appearances with the highest (HIGH; 51.8 ± 5.2 mins) and lowest court times (LOW; 10.1 ± 4.3 mins). Distances, accumulated acceleration, jumps, sprints, impacts, accelerations, and decelerations were analysed as absolute and relative (per minute) outcomes. Players were grouped into wings, backcourts, and pivots. Unpaired t-tests between HIGH and LOW were performed ( < .05), and effect sizes were calculated (Cohen´s d). Analyses revealed significant effects of court time on activity. While absolute activity increased for HIGH, relative activity increased for LOW ( < .05). In addition, effect sizes revealed position-specific gaps in physical load, particularly for acyclic activities (jumps, accelerations). Gaps in physical load resulting from limited court time are highly position-specific. Our observations may provide benchmarks for the position-specific calibration of compensatory training.