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Abstract
Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate objective and subjective sleep quality, daytime tiredness and sleepiness in response to a late-evening high intensity interval training (HIIT) session in neither-type soccer players that habitually trained late in the day. This is the first study that considered both athletes’ chronotype and habitual training time as crucial factors when assessing sleep quality in relation to an evening physical task.Methods: In this longitudinal, prospective, observational study, 14 Italian soccer players were recruited (mean age: 26.1 ± 4.5 years; height: 1.81 ± 0.06 m; weight: 78.9 ± 6.1 kg) and performed an extra-routine 4 × 4-min HIIT session at 09:00 p.m. Players used to train always between 09:00 and 11:00 p.m during the competitive season. All subjects wore an actigraph to evaluate their objective sleep parameters and a sleep diary was used to record subjective values of sleep quality, daytime tiredness, and daytime sleepiness. All data were analyzed as: the mean of the two nights before (PRE), the night after (POST 1), and the mean of the two nights after (POST 2) the extra-routine HIIT session. The subjects’ chronotype was assessed by the morningness-eveningness questionnaire (MEQ).Results: All players were classified as N-types (mean MEQ score: 49.4 ± 3.7). None of the actigraph parameters nor the subjective values of sleep quality, tiredness, and sleepiness showed significant changes in PRE, POST 1, and POST 2.Conclusion: The results of our study added more information regarding sleep quality outcomes in response to a late-evening HIIT session. Athletic trainers and medical staff should always control for chronotype and habitual training time when assessing variations to sleep quality in athletes.
Highlights
Success for athletes is determined by several factors, such as physical and mental training, nutrition, muscle and bone health, and by the ability to properly recover and rest between training sessions and competitions
Chronotype could play a key role for sleep: it has been reported that morningtype (M-type) soccer players worsened their sleep quality in response to an evening high intensity interval training (HIIT) session while no differences were detected for eveningtype (E-type) players (Vitale et al, 2017)
The habitual training time need to be considered when assessing the physiological responses to an evening performance: athletes who habitually trained in the evening, beyond their chronotype, reported lower ratings of perceived exertion in the evening, with better performance results, compared to a morning session (Rae et al, 2015), this variable has never been studied in relation to the athlete’s sleep
Summary
Success for athletes is determined by several factors, such as physical and mental training, nutrition, muscle and bone health, and by the ability to properly recover and rest between training sessions and competitions. Late-night competitions or training sessions could be tricky too for athlete’s sleep but results are controversial: it was reported that late-night soccer training did not affect athletes’ nocturnal heart-rate-variability (Costa et al, 2018) or sleep behavior (Robey et al, 2014) while, on the contrary, Vitale et al (2018) showed that elite volleyball players worsened their sleep quality and perceived recovery following a night game. This discrepancy could be due to confounders that have not been well controlled and that possibly could have influenced players’ sleep quality. We hypothesized to not observe significant decrement in sleep, tiredness, and sleepiness parameters in N-type players
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