Characterising the Internal and External Load During Warm-Up, Match Play and Training in Soccer Substitutes: A Systematic Scoping Review
Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026
Substitutes enter the pitch cooler than starters yet are asked to run at higher relative intensities, a mismatch current warm-up protocols may not be solving.
The paper
Systematic scoping review, 66 studies (from 5135 screened) on internal/external loading of soccer substitutes during warm-up, match play and training.
What they found
Substitutes' pre-pitch-entry body temperature (~37°C) sits well below in-match temperatures (>38°C); they cover lower absolute distances but higher relative total distance (~109-137 m·min-1), high-speed running (~9.8-13.5 m·min-1) and sprint distance (~3.8-5.0 m·min-1) than starters, with second-half substitutes reaching 84% max HR versus 81% for full-match players (but still below starters' 86% first-half HR).
Study design
PRISMA-ScR systematic scoping review of 66 primary studies (mix of observational/cohort designs using GPS, heart rate and core temperature measures) in elite/sub-elite soccer populations; this sits below a systematic review with meta-analysis on the evidence hierarchy because it maps and describes findings rather than pooling a quantitative effect.
Methodology
Search was systematic (four databases, PRISMA-ScR protocol) with dual independent quality assessment and a reported kappa of 0.939, which is a genuinely strong inter-rater agreement figure a reader could check against the published methods table. However, a scoping design was chosen explicitly because the 66 included studies were too heterogeneous in methods (different GPS systems, temperature measurement techniques, competition levels) to pool, so all the headline numbers are ranges across disparate studies, not a single effect estimate with a confidence interval. Underlying primary studies are largely observational with small samples, and publication bias toward 'significant' GPS/physiological findings in soccer science is a plausible threat the review cannot correct for.
The appraisal
The temperature and relative-intensity findings are physiologically plausible and consistent across studies, but this is a descriptive synthesis of associations, not a test of any intervention, so it cannot establish that lower core temperature causes the higher relative running outputs or vice versa, nor can it quantify how much a ~1°C temperature gap actually degrades sprint or power performance in practice. Statistically the agreement between included studies is reassuring, but clinically the magnitude of real-world impact (injury risk, performance decrement) remains unquantified.
The gap
No study in this review tests whether a specific substitute warm-up or re-warm-up protocol actually normalises core temperature or running output before pitch entry, this is a map of the problem, not a test of a fix. Soccer physical-performance research skews heavily male, so treat any extrapolation to female squads with extra caution until sex-specific data are confirmed. That intervention-efficacy evidence is what's needed before changing warm-up practice with confidence.
Landmark context
This extends the broader literature on match-running demands and half-time/substitute re-warm-up strategies (the well-established finding that core temperature and sprint performance decline during passive rest periods in soccer), by mapping substitute-specific data rather than testing a new re-warm-up intervention itself.
What to do Monday
Reinforces prioritising a late, active, substitute-specific warm-up or re-warm-up close to pitch entry to limit the temperature/readiness gap, but since no protocol here was tested for efficacy, don't adopt a specific new regimen off this paper alone, use it to justify auditing your current substitute warm-up timing.
In practice
This applies to any squad player who regularly comes off the bench, academy through elite, especially impact subs sent on after 60-70 minutes. On the S&C floor: stop treating the pre-match warm-up as the only warm-up, build a scheduled re-warm-up block timed to the likely substitution window (strides, COD, a short intensity spike in the 5-10 minutes before pitch entry) rather than passive bench time plus an occasional jog, and audit what your subs are actually doing now against the ~17 min/~1700 m 'top-up' figure here. In the clinic, treat a cold sub entering at >60 minutes as carrying a short-lived elevated soft-tissue risk window in the first 5-10 minutes on the pitch, worth factoring into return-to-play and rotation planning for players easing back from injury, but don't prescribe a specific new re-warm-up protocol off this paper, it maps the problem without testing a fix, so pilot and monitor any change in-house rather than rolling it out as validated practice.
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