Differences in the physical demands between handball and beach handball players

Abstract Handball is one of the most practiced team sports worldwide that consists of different modalities, with the aim of reaching as many users as possible. One of the modalities with increasing interest in the last years is Beach Handball, as it takes the advantage of the absence of competitive calendar in the standardized modality so that users continue practicing. A comparative analysis was performed between standard handball (indoor) and beach handball athletes in order to determine the demands of both modalities and determine if they are similar. The competition was evaluated by analyzing external load variables: number of steps, jumps, impacts and Player load. The selected sample was composed of U-16 players from both modalities. Each player was equipped with WIMUTM inertial device. The results showed that the standard modality requires greater physical demands than the beach modality. For this reason, the physical demands of the different modalities require different training processes to obtain the best possible results in the competition.