Sleep and the athlete: narrative review and 2021 expert consensus recommendations.

Elite athletes are particularly susceptible to sleep inadequacies, characterised by habitual short sleep (<7 hours/night) and poor sleep quality (eg, sleep fragmentation). Athletic performance is reduced by a night or more without sleep, but the influence on performance of partial sleep restriction over 1-3 nights, a more real-world scenario, remains unclear. Studies investigating sleep in athletes often suffer from inadequate experimental control, a lack of females and questions concerning the validity of the chosen sleep assessment tools.

Mechanical and morphological determinants of peak power output in elite cyclists.

Mechanical peak power output (PPO) is a determinant of performance in sprint cycling. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between PPO and putative physiological determinants of PPO in elite cyclists, and to compare sprint performance between elite sprint and endurance cyclists. Thirty-five elite cyclists (18 endurance; 17 sprint) performed duplicate sprint cycling laboratory tests to establish PPO and its mechanical components.

Cold water immersion improves recovery of sprint speed following a simulated tournament.

It is a common requirement in tournament scenarios for athletes to compete multiple times in a relatively short time period, with insufficient recovery time not allowing full restoration of physical performance. This study aimed to develop a greater understanding of the physiological stress experienced by athletes in a tournament scenario, and how a commonly used recovery strategy, cold water immersion (CWI), might influence these markers. Twenty-one trained male games players (age 19 ± 2; body mass 78.

Relation between Peak Power Output in Sprint Cycling and Maximum Voluntary Isometric Torque Production.

From a cycling paradigm, little has been done to understand the relationships between maximal isometric strength of different single joint lower body muscle groups and their relation with, and ability to predict PPO and how they compare to an isometric cycling specific task. The aim of this study was to establish relationships between maximal voluntary torque production from isometric single-joint and cycling specific tasks and assess their ability to predict PPO. Twenty male trained cyclists participated in this study.

Effects of seated and standing cold water immersion on recovery from repeated sprinting.

This study investigated the effects of two different hydrostatic pressures (seated or standing) during cold water immersion at attenuating the deleterious effects of strenuous exercise on indices of damage and recovery. Twenty four male well-trained games players (age 23 ± 3 years; body mass 81.4 ± 8.

Compression garments and recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage: a meta-analysis.

The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of compression garments on recovery following damaging exercise. A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted using studies that evaluated the efficacy of compression garments on measures of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), muscular strength, muscular power and creatine kinase (CK). Studies were extracted from a literature search of online databases.

Sleep duration and quality in elite athletes measured using wristwatch actigraphy.

Sleep is known to be an important component of recovery from training, yet little is known about the quality and quantity of sleep achieved by elite athletes. The aim of the present study was to quantify sleep in elite athletes using wristwatch actigraphy. Individual nights of sleep from a cohort of Olympic athletes (n = 47) from various sports were analysed and compared to non-athletic controls (n = 20).