Isolated and combined wearable technology underestimate the total energy expenditure of professional young rugby league players; a doubly labelled water validation study

Costello, N., Deighton, K., Cummins, C., Whitehead, S., Preston, T. and Jones, B. (2022) Isolated and combined wearable technology underestimate the total energy expenditure of professional young rugby league players; a doubly labelled water validation study. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 36(12), pp. 3398-3403. (doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003434) (PMID:31895278)

Abstract

Accurately determining total energy expenditure (TEE) enables the precise manipulation of energy balance within professional collision-based sports. Therefore, this study investigated the ability of isolated or combined wearable technology to determine the TEE of professional young rugby league players across a typical preseason and in-season period. Total energy expenditure was measured via doubly labelled water, the criterion method, across a fourteen-day preseason (n = 6) and 7-day in-season (n = 7) period. Practical measures of TEE included SenseWear Pro3 Armbands in isolation and combined with metabolic power derived from microtechnology units. SenseWear Pro3 Armbands significantly under-reported preseason (5.00 [2.52] MJ·d−1; p = 0.002) and in-season (2.86 [1.15] MJ·d−1; p < 0.001) TEE, demonstrating a large and extremely large standardized mean bias, and a very large and large typical error, respectively. Combining metabolic power with SenseWear Pro3 Armbands almost certainly improved preseason (0.95 [0.15] MJ·d−1; Effect size = 0.32 ± 0.04; p < 0.001) and in-season (1.01 [0.15] MJ·d−1; ES = 0.88 ± 1.05; p < 0.001) assessment. However, SenseWear Pro3 Armbands combined with metabolic power continued to significantly under-report preseason (4.04 [2.38] MJ·d−1; p = 0.004) and in-season (2.18 [0.96] MJ·d−1; p = 0.002) expenditure, demonstrating a large and very large standardized mean bias, and a very large and large typical error, respectively. These findings demonstrate the limitations of utilizing isolated or combined wearable technology to accurately determine the TEE of professional collision-based sport athletes across different stages of the season.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Preston, Professor Tom
• Authors: Costello, N., Deighton, K., Cummins, C., Whitehead, S., Preston, T., and Jones, B.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre
• Journal Name: Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
• Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
• ISSN: 1064-8011
• ISSN (Online): 1533-4287
• Published Online: 27 December 2019