The One Giant Leap commercial wireless power meter can be used for sprint kayaking with the appropriate calibration

Purpose Two experiments were conducted to determine the construct and concurrent validity of a commercial kayak paddle shaft power meter (OGL) for measuring force and power output in female sprint kayakers. Methods and Results Construct validity: Seven female participants used the same OGL paddle to complete 30 s trials at different stroke rates (60, 80, 100, maximum strokes per minute) while a global positioning system measured kayak velocity. Regression analysis provided a large coefficient of determination (R 2 ≥0.83) between mean power and mean velocity (f(x) = 6.892 × 3). Concurrent validity: Two known weight combinations were used to calibrate the paddle (wide range: 51.5–394.9 N; narrow range: 100.6–247.7 N), whereas both left and right sides of the shaft were statically loaded eight separate times with known weights (51.5 N–394.9 N at 49.1 N intervals) to test its concurrent validity. The right side of the shaft had proportional bias (p < 0.001) and the left side of the shaft had fixed bias (65.7 ± 21.1 N, p = 0.017) when calibrated with a narrow range. Neither shaft side had proportional bias, but both shaft sides had small, fixed biases (left: 18.3 ± 7.4 N, p = 0.043; right: 9.3 ± 3.0 N, p = 0.018) when calibrated with a wide range. Conclusion The study establishes that even though the OGL reports power values that appear to have construct validity up to 4.6 m s -1 , calibration with a range of weights that encompasses the projected applied forces is needed to improve the accuracy of the force measurement, and thus the power calculation, by the OGL.