Ecological Validation and Reliability of Hexoskin Wearable Body Metrics Tool in Measuring Pre-exercise and Peak Heart Rate During Shuttle Run Test in Professional Handball Players

Abstract

The aim of the study was to assess the validity and reliability of wearable body metric Hexoskin "smart shirt" in measuring heart rate (HR) at pre-exercise and during peak effort in a field test incorporating vigorous movements of the upper body. Measurements were recorded simultaneously using the Hexoskin and Polar Team Pro. Nine male professional handball players (age: 21.8 ± 2.4 years; weight: 83 ± 10.26 kg; height: 1.81 ± 0.09 m; and BMI: 25.17 ± 2.23) volitionally participated in the study by completing two 400 m shuttle run test trials (10 shuttles), each separated by a 48 to 72 h recovery period. Results indicated significant correlations between Hexoskin and Polar Team Pro system in pre-exercise HR. Hexoskin provided erroneous measurements in four of the nine athletes during peak effort. Subsequent correction yielded no consistency between the Polar Team Pro system and Hexoskin between the first and the second trial. Hexoskin showed significant reliability in pre-exercise HR. However, Hexoskin picked up excessive artifact during vigorous physical activity in four of the nine athletes rendering the results in these cases useless. Nevertheless, in athletes where artifact was not an issue, ICC yielded a good estimate. The main findings indicate that Hexoskin has good validity and reliability in measuring pre-exercise HR in handball players and hence may be used with high confidence in slow motion activities. However, vigorous physical activity with jarring multidirectional upper body movements posed a challenge for Hexoskin.

Comparison of Heart Rate Monitoring Accuracy between Chest Strap and Vest during Physical Training and Implications on Training Decisions

“…The beat-to-beat measurement accuracy of the strap in our study was in line with results of the previous studies [8,9]. Poorer performance of the vest sensors in measuring HR has also been reported earlier [11,12]. Our study confirms these findings.…”

“…Hence, vests with integrated electrodes for HR monitoring have been introduced to overcome the shortcomings of chest straps. However, their accuracy as compared to chest straps has been questioned [11,12].…”

Feasibility of Using the Hexoskin Smart Garment for Natural Environment Observation of Respiration Topography

“…The WRM used in this study is the Hexoskin Smart Garment with the Hexoskin Smart Device (datalogger). The Hexoskin has been used in a number of applications, including sports and fitness tracking [ 17 , 18 ], patient monitoring [ 19 ], and assessing obesity risk [ 20 ]. The use of the Hexoskin for ambulatory measurement of respiration topography was previously qualitatively assessed [ 1 ].…”

Assessment of Stress Level with Help of “Smart Clothing” Sensors, Heart Rate Variability-Based Markers and Machine Learning Algorithms

“…In this study, we aimed to assess stress levels with HRV markers in healthy individuals in their daily activities using HRV parameters obtained from smart clothing sensors and processed with ML algorithm technologies. The Hexoskin Smart Shirt was chosen for smart clothing because there are reports that it provides reliable HR signals [15,16].…”