ORIGINAL ARTICLE  EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOMECHANICS 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2017 March;57(3):189-94

DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.16.06021-X

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Session-RPE for quantifying load of different youth taekwondo training sessions

Corrado LUPO ¹, Laura CAPRANICA ², Cristina CORTIS ³, Flavia GUIDOTTI ², Antonino BIANCO ⁴, Antonio TESSITORE ² ✉

¹ Department of Medical Sciences, School of Exercise and Sport Sciences (SUISM), Università di Torino, Turin, Italy; ² Division of Human Movement and Sport Sciences, Department of Movement, Human and Health Sciences, University of Rome Foro Italico, Rome, Italy; ³ Department of Human Sciences, Society, and Health University of Cassino and Lazio Meridionale, Cassino, Frosinone, Italy; ⁴ Sport and Exercise Sciences Research Unit, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

BACKGROUND: The session rating of perceived exertion (session-RPE) proved to be a valuable method to quantify the internal training load (ITL) in taekwondo. However, no study validated this method in youth taekwondo athletes performing different training sessions. Thus this study aimed at evaluating the reliability of the session-RPE to monitor the ITL of prepubescent taekwondo athletes during pre-competitive (PC) and competitive (C) training sessions.
METHODS: Five female (age: 12.0±0.7 y; height: 1.54±0.08 m; body mass: 48.8±7.3 kg) and four male (age: 12.0±0.8 yrs; height: 1.55±0.07 m; body mass: 47.3±5.3 kg) taekwondo athletes were monitored during 100 individual sessions (PC: N.=33; C: N.=67). The Edwards’ HR method was used as reference measure of ITL; the CR-10 RPE scale was administered at 1- and 30-minutes from the end of each session.
RESULTS: No difference for gender emerged. The ITLs of C (Edwards: 228±40 arbitrary units, AU) resulted higher than that of PC (192±26 AU; P=0.04). Although all training typologies and data collections achieved significant correlations between Edwards’ and session-RPE methods, a large relationship (r =0.71, P<0.001) emerged only for PC sessions evaluated at 30 minutes of the recovery phases.
CONCLUSIONS: Findings support coaches of prepubescent taekwondo athletes to successfully use session-RPE to monitor the ITL of different training typologies. However, PC training evaluated at 30 minutes of the recovery phase represents the best condition for a highly reliable ITL perception.

KEY WORDS: Physical exertion - Heart rate - Sports - Resistance training - Martial arts