Abstract

Purpose: The correct assessment of energy expenditure (EE) in athletes is important in order to ensure that dietary energy intake is sufficient. In general, athletes are individuals with especially high levels of total EE (TEE) and exercise-related EE (ExEE). The SenseWear Pro3 armband (SWA) is a multisensor device for the individual assessment of EE, but data on the validity for higher exercise intensities is missing. Aim of the study was to validate the SWA for the assessment of TEE and ExEE in endurance athletes. Methods: The SWA was worn by 14 male endurance athletes over 7 days during a regular training period and TEE was parallely measured with the doubly labeled water (DLW) method. Two controlled exercise trials (treadmill running: 2.4 to 4.8 m/s, stationary bicycling: 140 to 380 W) were performed, during which indirect calorimetry (IC) was used to assess ExEE. Results: TEEArmband and TEEDLW were significantly correlated (r = 0.73, p < 0.01) but there was a proportional bias and considerably wide limits of agreement (-1368 to 1238 kcal/d). The error of TEEArmband was related to the athletes' individual lactate thresholds (p < 0.05). During running and bicycling, ExEE was significantly underestimated for most exercise intensities and underestimation increased with exercise intensity (p < 0.001). Conclusion: According to our results, the SWA does not provide valid results of TEE and ExEE in endurance athletes due to underestimation of EE at higher exercise intensities. It seems necessary to develop exercise-specific prediction equations in order to improve EE measurements in athletes. Verf.-Referat