Abstract
Background: In the past years, there was an increasing development of physical activity tracker (Wearables). For recreational people, testing of these devices under walking or light jogging conditions might be sufficient. For (elite) athletes, however, scientific trustworthiness needs to be given for a broad spectrum of velocities or even fast changes in velocities reflecting the demands of the sport. Therefore, the aim was to evaluate the validity of eleven Wearables for monitoring step count, covered distance and energy expenditure (EE) under laboratory conditions with different constant and varying velocities.Methods: Twenty healthy sport students (10 men, 10 women) performed a running protocol consisting of four 5 min stages of different constant velocities (4.3; 7.2; 10.1; 13.0 km·h−1), a 5 min period of intermittent velocity, and a 2.4 km outdoor run (10.1 km·h−1) while wearing eleven different Wearables (Bodymedia Sensewear, Beurer AS 80, Polar Loop, Garmin Vivofit, Garmin Vivosmart, Garmin Vivoactive, Garmin Forerunner 920XT, Fitbit Charge, Fitbit Charge HR, Xaomi MiBand, Withings Pulse Ox). Step count, covered distance, and EE were evaluated by comparing each Wearable with a criterion method (Optogait system and manual counting for step count, treadmill for covered distance and indirect calorimetry for EE).Results: All Wearables, except Bodymedia Sensewear, Polar Loop, and Beurer AS80, revealed good validity (small MAPE, good ICC) for all constant and varying velocities for monitoring step count. For covered distance, all Wearables showed a very low ICC (<0.1) and high MAPE (up to 50%), revealing no good validity. The measurement of EE was acceptable for the Garmin, Fitbit and Withings Wearables (small to moderate MAPE), while Bodymedia Sensewear, Polar Loop, and Beurer AS80 showed a high MAPE up to 56% for all test conditions.Conclusion: In our study, most Wearables provide an acceptable level of validity for step counts at different constant and intermittent running velocities reflecting sports conditions. However, the covered distance, as well as the EE could not be assessed validly with the investigated Wearables. Consequently, covered distance and EE should not be monitored with the presented Wearables, in sport specific conditions.
Highlights
IntroductionBesides having applications for physical fitness and health in the general population by monitoring a plethora of different variables like step count, covered distance and energy expenditure (EE), Wearables may be useful for (elite) athletes as well
In the past years, there was an increasing development of physical activity trackers (Wearables) which earned them the first place in the ACSM Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends in 2016 and 2017, leaving popular topics like “High-intensity interval training” and “strength training” behind (Thompson, 2015, 2016).Besides having applications for physical fitness and health in the general population by monitoring a plethora of different variables like step count, covered distance and energy expenditure (EE), Wearables may be useful for athletes as well
There is scarce literature stating the validity of consumer level Wearables under sport specific conditions, even though some of the analyzed wearables are validated in the general population (El-Amrawy and Nounou, 2015; Alsubheen et al, 2016; An et al, 2017; Price et al, 2017)
Summary
Besides having applications for physical fitness and health in the general population by monitoring a plethora of different variables like step count, covered distance and energy expenditure (EE), Wearables may be useful for (elite) athletes as well. In these populations, Wearables might be used to monitor aspects of training load (Düking et al, 2016) as well as physical activity during leisure time and provide biofeedback to optimize exercises (Düking et al, 2017). For recreational people, testing of these devices under walking or light jogging conditions might be sufficient. The aim was to evaluate the validity of eleven Wearables for monitoring step count, covered distance and energy expenditure (EE) under laboratory conditions with different constant and varying velocities
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