Off-Training Levels of Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in Young Athletes: Preliminary Results during a Typical Week

Abstract

The level of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SED) off-training of young athletes may reveal the quality of recovery from training and highlight health related issues. Thus, the aim was to identify and describe young athletes’ PA and SED off-training, according to daily life activities. Eight athletes (15.7 ± 2 years, 1.72 ± 0.6 m height, 62.9 ± 10.2 kg) of a sport talent program wore on their waist a tri-axial accelerometer (ActiGraph® wGT9X-link, Shalimar, FL, USA) at 30 Hz for 15 consecutive days, and reported their schedule. A two-step cluster analysis classified three groups according to sedentary PA and MVPA. The Sedentary (56.9%), presented the highest sedentary PA (mean [CI], 37.37 [36.45–38.29] min/hour); The Hazardous (19.4%) had the lowest values of sedentary and MVPA (10.07 [9.41–10.36] min/hour and 8.67 [7.64–9.70] min/hour, respectively). Balanced (23.7%) had the highest MVPA (28.61 [27.16–30.07] min/hour). Sedentary had the lowest count of home time associated (20%) and higher school (26%) time when compared to the Hazardous (13%). The Balanced showed the highest count of school (61%) and home time (47%). Different profiles for young athletes revealed alarming behavior in the associations with sedentary PA, sitting and SED breaks, which may influence performance and health.