Injury Prevention: Sleep and Recovery in Athletes
Over the next month or two we will be providing a mini series of posts covering the major issues regarding injury prevention for athletes. This week we will start the Injury Prevention mini series by taking a look at how sleep plays a crucial role in overall health, athletic performance, and injury prevention. Sleep deprivation remains far too common in young athletes with vigorous training and academic schedules. Athletes and coaches need to understand the significant role sleep plays in optimizing athletic performance and decreasing injury risk to increase the priority of sleep quality and quantity.
As an athlete, the best kind of ability is availability. Athletes are most valuable to their team when healthy and available rather than sidelined with an injury. Of course injuries can happen unexpectedly at anytime and anywhere, but athletes and coaches can take calculated steps to reduce the risk of injury. Sleep quality and quantity directly impact the risk of injury and are 100% determined by the athlete.
Mild sleep loss, 4-5 hours per night, significantly hinders athletic performance across a number of domains such as speed, endurance, and performance accuracy. In addition, athletes sleeping less than eight hours per night are 1.7 times more likely to experience a significant injury than athletes obtaining adequate (8+ hours) sleep (Milewski et al., 2014). These statistics highlight the effect sleep has on not only performing well, but also avoiding injury.
Enhancing sleep quality and quantity proves to be an effective way to reduce injury and enhance overall performance. Here’s a few tips to create an effective sleep schedule and improve overall quality of sleep.
Keep a sleep log
Limit screen time before bed
Keep the room cool, dark, and comfortable
Decrease caffeine intake at late hours
In summary, training is where the body learns a particular adaption, and adequate sleep and recovery are required for the adaptation to occur. Sleep must become a priority to maximize training results and reduce the risk of injury.
Stay tuned for next weeks blog regarding the role of flexibility and mobility in injury prevention.