An Investigation of the Sex Differences in Terms of Internal and External Loads in Orienteering Activities

Background : Orienteering has been growing in popularity and is considered to meet several of the needs of adolescents. Factors such as the type of terrain and the technical difficulty of the course affect the load in orienteering. In order to plan sports training regimes and recreational activities, it is crucial to know about the internal and external loads of the actions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the sex differences in internal loads (heart rate) and external loads (distance covered at specific speeds) of the activities in orienteering. Methods : This study included 9 women with a mean age of 16.00 ± 0.83 years and 11 men with a mean age of 15.91 ± 1.22 years, who were all enrolled in a high school and who participated in school orienteering as a sports activity. The volunteer adolescents participated in the orienteering activity on a large, campus-like terrain that had a topographic map. The orienteering-specific goals were placed in this course at certain distances between them. Team Pro Polar was utilized to determine the participants’ internal and external loads. The ‘Mann-Whitney U’ test was utilized for the comparison of the data obtained from the participants in terms of their sexes. Results : The orienteering activity was found to cause a high-level internal load in adolescents, but no statistically significant differences were found between the sexes ( p > 0.05). Female course runners were found to cover distance mostly by walking and low-speed running. Men were found to cover longer distances than the women in moderate, high and maximum-speed running. Conclusions : The findings of this study show that orienteering is a physically challenging activity for both male and female adolescents. While the sexes were similar in terms of internal load, men were found to be exposed to a higher load in terms of their external load.