Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Mar 17;5(1):21.
doi: 10.3390/jfmk5010021.

Session RPE Breakpoints Corresponding to Intensity Thresholds in Elite Open Water Swimmers

Cristian Ieno  1 , Roberto Baldassarre  1   2 , Claudio Quagliarotti  1 , Marco Bonifazi  2   3 , Maria Francesca Piacentini  1
Affiliations

Session RPE Breakpoints Corresponding to Intensity Thresholds in Elite Open Water Swimmers

Cristian Ieno et al. J Funct Morphol Kinesiol. .

Abstract

This study aims to assess the correspondence between session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) breakpoints with both the first lactate threshold (LT1) and the second lactate threshold (LT2) in elite open water swimmers (OWS). Six elite OWS of the National Olympic Team specialized in distances between 5 and 25 km participated to the study. OWS performed a set of 6 times 500 m incremental swimming step test during which blood lactate concentration (BLC), split time (ST), stroke frequency (SF), and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were collected. To assess the corresponding breakpoints, we considered LT1 as the highest workload not associated with rise in BLC and LT2 as the increase of 2mM above LT1. According to the LT1 and LT2, the identified zones were: Z1 ≤3, Z2 between 4 and 6, Z3 ≥ 7. In conclusion, the intensity zones determined for OWS resulted different from what previously reported for other endurance disciplines.

Keywords: TL; elite athletes; endurance; lactate thresholds detection; polarized training; rate of perceived exertion; training zones.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

    1. Piacentini M.F., Meeusen R. An Online Training-Monitoring System to Prevent Nonfunctional Overreaching. Int. J. Sports Physiol. Perform. 2015;10:524–527. doi: 10.1123/ijspp.2014-0270. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Foster C. Monitoring training in athletes with reference to overtraining syndrome. Med. Sci. Sport. Exerc. 1998;30:1164–1168. doi: 10.1097/00005768-199807000-00023. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Saw A.E., Main L.C., Gastin P.B. Monitoring the athlete training response: Subjective self-reported measures trump commonly used objective measures: A systematic review. Br. J. Sports Med. 2016;50:281–291. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2015-094758. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hopkins W.G. Quantification of Training in Competitive Sports: Methods and Applications. Sport. Med. 1991;12:161–183. doi: 10.2165/00007256-199112030-00003. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Halson S.L. Monitoring Training Load to Understand Fatigue in Athletes. Sport. Med. 2014;44:139–147. doi: 10.1007/s40279-014-0253-z. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources