Polar unite fitness watch

Participants randomly allocated to the telehealth delivered ExCRP will attend on-site training for the first three sessions (week 1) before continuing the exercise programme away from the university (weeks 2–6) and serve as the experimental intervention. Participants will choose their preferred mode of aerobic exercise (walking, jogging or cycling) based on exercise preference and access to equipment. To ensure standardised exercise intensity between intervention arms, participants will be provided with a target HR as well as the exercise intensity that correlates to the workload at individual VAT. Each participant will be provided with a Polar Unite fitness watch (Polar Electro Oy, Kempele, Finland) to objectively measure HR response. Participants will be required to log their training data and sessional RPE online using the Polar Flow software (Polar Electro Oy, Kempele, Finland) secured by login and password, allowing the research team to monitor adherence and training intensity weekly. Finally, participants will be required to attend a weekly audio or audio-visual meeting to discuss training adherence and compliance. MI-CBT will be incorporated into the weekly audio/audio-visual meeting for participants in the telehealth delivered ExCRP with a trained member of the research team implementing the same MI-CBT strategies as the supervised group.

To control for potential differences in habitual physical activity between participants, participant’s activity level will be monitored for seven consecutive days prior to baseline assessments. Monitoring participants’ activity level will be performed using a Polar Unite fitness watch (Polar Electro Oy, Kempele, Finland), which provides objective measurement of human activity (eg, active time, steps, estimated calories expended). These Polar Unite devices are water resistant, can be programmed for 130 types of physical activity (eg, swimming, cycling), and will be worn on participant’s wrist while they are awake. Polar watches estimate energy expenditure using both acceleration and heart rate signals, with prior studies showing that devices with heart rate sensors provide improved estimates of energy expenditure compared with accelerometers alone24 (link) and polar devices perform well compared with other wrist worn devices.24 25 (link) To identify changes in participants physical activity throughout the study, participants will also be asked complete a physical activity and exercise history questionnaire (adapted from Active Australia Survey26 ) prior to each time point.