Citation

Clarke N, Farthing JP, Norris SR, Arnold BE, Lanovaz JL. J. Strength Cond. Res. 2013; 27(8): 2198-2205.

Affiliation

College of Kinesiology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, CANADA bFaculty of the University of Calgary and the Mount Royal College, Calgary, CANADA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, National Strength and Conditioning Association)

DOI

10.1519/JSC.0b013e31827e1334

PMID

23222076

Abstract

The session-rating of perceived exertion (Session-RPE) method for quantifying internal training load (TL) has proven to be a highly valuable and accurate monitoring tool in numerous team sports. However, the influence of frequent impact during Canadian football on the validity of on this subjective rating tool remains unclear. The aim of this study was to validate Session-RPE application to a prolonged intermittent high intensity collision-based team sport through correlation of internal TL data collected using two criterion heart rate-based measures known as Polar Training-Impulse (TRIMP) and Edwards' TL. Twenty male participants (age = 22.0±1.4 years) from the competitive roster of the University of Saskatchewan Canadian football team were recruited. Session-RPE, Polar TRIMP and Edward's TL data were collected daily over the 2011 Canadian Interuniversity Sport pre- and competitive season (11 weeks; 713 total practice sessions). On average each player contributed 36 sessions of data to the analysis. Statistically significant correlations (p<0.01) between Session-RPE with Polar TRIMP (r range: 0.65-0.91) and with Edwards' TL (r range: 0.69-0.91) were found for all individual players. This study provides confirmation that Session-RPE is an inexpensive and simple tool which is highly practical and accurately measures an individual's response (internal TL) to Canadian football practice. Furthermore, when considering the number of individuals involved world-wide in collision-based team sports, this tool has the potential to impact a large proportion of the global sporting community.

Language: en