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Are professional young rugby league players eating enough? Energy intake, expenditure and balance during a pre-season
Abstract
Due to the unique energetic demands of professional young collision sport athletes, accurate assessment of energy balance is required. Consequently, this is the first study to simultaneously investigate the energy intake, expenditure and balance of professional young rugby league players across a pre‐season period. The total energy expenditure of six professional young male rugby league players was measured via doubly labelled water over a fourteen‐day assessment period. Resting metabolic rate was measured and physical activity level calculated. Dietary intake was reported via Snap‐N‐Send over a non‐consecutive ten‐day assessment period, alongside changes in fasted body mass and hydration status. Accordingly, energy balance was inferred. The mean (standard deviation) difference between total energy intake (16.73 (1.32) MJ . day −1 ) and total energy expenditure (18.36 (3.05) MJ . day −1 ) measured over the non‐consecutive ten‐day period was unclear (−1.63 (1.73) MJ . day −1 ; ES = 0.91 ± 1.28; p = 0.221). This corresponded in a most likely trivial decrease in body mass (−0.65 (0.78) kg; ES = 0.04 ± 0.03; p = 0.097). Resting metabolic rate and physical activity level across the fourteen‐day pre‐season period was 11.20 (2.16) MJ . day −1 and 1.7 (0.2), respectively. For the first time, this study utilises gold standard assessment techniques to elucidate the distinctly large energy expenditures of professional young rugby league players across a pre‐season period, emphasising a requirement for equally large energy intakes to achieve targeted body mass and composition adaptations. Accordingly, it is imperative that practitioners regularly assess the energy balance of professional young collision‐sport athletes to ensure their unique energetic requirements are achieved.
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“Yet many youth team sport athletes fail to meet energy and carbohydrate recommendations, particularly during intensive training and competition phases”
From Dietary intake, nutrition knowledge, and behavior in youth team sport athletes: a scoping review and call to advance research and practice (2026) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Among these, one found no significant energy deficit at group level despite high energy demands [9], another identified approximately 40% underreporting of energy intake relative to measured expenditure [74] and a third reported a deficit of 389 kcal/day [10], lower than many of the deficits reported in studies relying on estimated expenditure.”
From Dietary intake, nutrition knowledge, and behavior in youth team sport athletes: a scoping review and call to advance research and practice (2026) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Notably, several studies reported protein intakes consistent with or above current adult sports nutrition recommendations alongside evidence of suboptimal energy intake [9,10,36,52,57,60,61,69,73].”
From Dietary intake, nutrition knowledge, and behavior in youth team sport athletes: a scoping review and call to advance research and practice (2026) · cites this paper as [10]
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Cites
Nutrition and Athletic Performance
(2016) · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · doi:10.1249/mss.0000000000000852 · Cited by 1,305 · cited 5×
“Beyond energetic demands, players seemed to consume appropriate macronutrient intakes for optimal training, adaptation and recovery (Thomas et al., 2016), most likely an inevitable consequence of such large overall dietary intakes.”
BackgroundInfluentialCompher, C., Frankenfield, D., Keim, N., & Roth-Yousey, L. (2006) · Journal of the American Dietetic Association · doi:10.1016/j.jada.2006.02.009 · Cited by 923 · cited 4×
“Data were subsequently averaged every 30 s to remove artefacts and exported to Microsoft Excel (2016, Seattle, USA), providing an accurate assessment of RMR with a coefficient of variation 10 % (Compher et al., 2006).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialEnergy balance measurement: when something is not better than nothing
Dhurandhar, N. V., Schoeller, D., Brown, A. W., Heymsfield, S. B., Thomas, D., Sørensen, T. I. A., Speakman, J. R., Jeansonne, M., Allison, D. B., & the Energy Balance Measurement Working Group (2015) · International Journal of Obesity · doi:10.1038/ijo.2014.199 · Cited by 567
Longland, T. M., Oikawa, S. Y., Mitchell, C. J., Devries, M. C., & Phillips, S. M. (2016) · The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition · doi:10.3945/ajcn.115.119339 · Cited by 271 · cited 2×
“Although a negative energy balance combined with a high protein diet can result in desirable body composition changes (i.e. decreased fat mass)(Longland et al., 2016), consistent energy deficits have been shown to result in low energy availability and a myriad of health defects that greatly ‘…”
BackgroundDoubly labelled water assessment of energy expenditure: principle, practice, and promise.
Westerterp, K. R. (2017) · European Journal of Applied Physiology · doi:10.1007/s00421-017-3641-x · Cited by 219
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Cited by
Irwin, N., Ó Catháin, C., Ward, C., & Kelly, D. T. (2026) · Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition · doi:10.1080/15502783.2026.2671431 · Cited by 4
LEHMANN, L., GIACOMONI, M., MASO, F., COLARD, J., MARGARITIS, I., & DUCHÉ, P. (2025) · The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness · doi:10.23736/s0022-4707.24.16183-x · Cited by 3
Metadata
- Authors
- Costello, N., Deighton, K., Preston, T., Matu, J., Rowe, J., & Jones, B.
- Affiliations
- Centre for Human Performance Leeds Beckett University Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure Leeds UK
- Stable Isotope Biochemistry Laboratory Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre East Kilbride Scotland
- Leeds University Faculty of Medicine and Health Leeds UK
- ORCID
- Jones, Ben
- Venue
- European Journal of Sport Science
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2018-10-07
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 123-132
- ISSN
- 1746-1391
- 1536-7290
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 5
- Language
- en
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