Publications by authors named "Richard Swinbourne"
Background: Identifying key variables that predict sleep quality in youth athletes allows practitioners to monitor the most parsimonious set of variables that can improve athlete buy-in and compliance for athlete self-report measurement. Translating these findings into a decision-making tool could facilitate practitioner willingness to monitor sleep in athletes.
Hypothesis: Key predictor variables, identified by feature reduction techniques, will lead to higher predictive accuracy in determining youth athletes with poor sleep quality.
Sleep Characteristics of Elite Youth Athletes: A Clustering Approach to Optimize Sleep Support Strategies.
Int J Sports Physiol Perform
September 2021
Article Synopsis
- Elite youth athletes often struggle with sleep due to rigorous training and competition schedules, with the study focusing on understanding their sleep quality and caffeine use.
- The research involved 135 athletes who completed questionnaires, revealing that 45.2% experienced poor sleep quality, particularly among team-sport participants compared to individual-sport athletes.
- By using clustering techniques, the study identified four unique sleep characteristic groups to tailor support strategies for athletes facing similar sleep challenges.
(1) Background: The purpose of the present study was to examine the efficacy of sleep extension in professional rugby players. The aims were to: (i) characterise sleep quantity in elite rugby players and determine changes in immune function and stress hormone secretion during a pre-season training programme; (ii) evaluate the efficacy of a sleep extension intervention in improving sleep, markers of physical stress, immune function and performance. (2) Methods: Twenty five highly trained athletes from a professional rugby team (age (mean ± SD) 25 ± 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Despite the perceived importance of sleep for athletes, little is known regarding athlete sleep quality, their prevalence of daytime sleepiness or risk factors for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) such as snoring and witnessed apnoeic episodes. The purpose of the present study was to characterise normative sleep quality among highly trained team sport athletes.
Methodology: 175 elite or highly trained rugby sevens, rugby union and cricket athletes completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Score (ESS) and Quality of Life questionnaires and an OSA risk factor screen.