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Editorial
Self-reported measures of training exposure: can we trust them, and how do we select them?
  1. Myles Calder Murphy1,2,3,
  2. Philip Glasgow4,5,
  3. Andrea Britt Mosler6
  1. 1 School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Western Australia, Australia
  2. 2 School of Nursing, Midwifery, Health Sciences and Physiotherapy, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
  3. 3 SportsMed Subiaco, St John of God Health Care, Subiaco, Western Australia, Australia
  4. 4 Irish Rugby Football Union, Dublin, Ireland
  5. 5 Sports Institute, Ulster University, Coleraine, UK
  6. 6 La Trobe Sport and Exercise Medicine Research Centre, College of Science Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Mr Myles Calder Murphy, School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA 6027, Australia; myles.murphy1{at}my.nd.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2021-104498

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    Accurate exposure data are essential

    Valid methods of quantifying sporting exposure and athlete response are essential to answering many sports injury research questions. External measures of exposure describe volume, duration or intensity of a match or training session and include time (eg, hours spent training), distance (eg, metres run) and number of events (eg, number of baseball pitches).1 Internal measures relate to the effect on, or experience of, an athlete during a session and include both subjective (eg, rating of percieved exertion (RPE)) and objective measures (eg, heart rate).1

    Accurately recording exposure allows the direct comparison of injury incidence rates between different populations, sports, seasons and anatomical region, and should be accounted for in risk factor analyses.1 In addition to inconsistent terminology used to define injury and performance, the validity of any such analysis is dependent on the accuracy of the exposure data collected. Given the multifactorial nature of injury risk, a range of measures that reflect the physiological, psychological and biomechanical exposure load should be considered rather than focusing on a single metric.

    Usefulness: do we only assess what is easily measured?

    It is easy to fall into the trap of quantifying exposure metrics which are easily measured. Substantial …

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @myles_physio, @AndreaBMosler

    • Contributors MCM and ABM conceived the editorial. MCM, PG and ABM contributed to the development and writing of the editorial.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.