• Neil Gibson, Jace R Drain, Penelope Larsen, Sean Williams, Herbert Groeller, and John A Sampson.
• Centre for Medical and Exercise Physiology, Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
• Mil Med. 2023 Mar 20; 188 (3-4): 670677670-677.

IntroductionSubjective measures may offer practitioners a relatively simple method to monitor recruit responses to basic military training (BMT). Yet, a lack of agreement between subjective and objective measures may presents a problem to practitioners wishing to implement subjective monitoring strategies. This study therefore aims to examine associations between subjective and objective measures of workload and sleep in Australian Army recruits.Materials And MethodsThirty recruits provided daily rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and differential RPE (d-RPE) for breathlessness and leg muscle exertion each evening. Daily internal workloads determined via heart rate monitors were expressed as Edwards training impulse (TRIMP) and average heart rate. External workloads were determined via global positioning system (PlayerLoadTM) and activity monitors (step count). Subjective sleep quality and duration was monitored in 29 different recruits via a customized questionnaire. Activity monitors assessed objective sleep measures. Linear mixed-models assessed associations between objective and subjective measures. Akaike Information Criterion assessed if the inclusion of d-RPE measures resulted in a more parsimonious model. Mean bias, typical error of the estimate (TEE) and within-subject repeated measures correlations examined agreement between subjective and objective sleep duration.ResultsConditional R2 for associations between objective and subjective workloads ranged from 0.18 to 0.78, P < 0.01, with strong associations between subjective measures of workload and TRIMP (0.65-0.78), average heart rate (0.57-0.73), and PlayerLoadTM (0.54-0.68). Including d-RPE lowered Akaike Information Criterion. The slope estimate between objective and subjective measures of sleep quality was not significant. A trivial relationship (r = 0.12; CI -0.03, 0.27) was observed between objective and subjective sleep duration with subjective measures overestimating (mean bias 25 min) sleep duration (TEE 41 min).ConclusionsDaily RPE offers a proxy measure of internal workload in Australian Army recruits; however, the current subjective sleep questionnaire should not be considered a proxy measure of objective sleep measures.© The Association of Military Surgeons of the United States 2021. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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