Saturday, January 8, 2011

Sleep or rather what happens when you don't get it......

Thought this was an interesting abstract:

Intermittent-Sprint Performance and Muscle Glycogen Following 30 H Sleep Deprivation.


Looks like missing a night's sleep:
  • reduced muscle glycogen levels
  • the force that could be applied through the quads
  • the activation of the quads
  • worsened sprint performance
  • worsened mood
CONCLUSION: Sleep loss and associated reductions in muscle glycogen and perceptual stress reduced sprint performance and slowed pacing strategies during intermittent-sprint exercise for male team-sport athletes.
Not a surprise I suppose, but interesting.  Losing a night's sleep wrecks you!

1 comment:

Mike said...

Makes perfect sense, but it's interesting to see it quantified. I know personally as an n=1 that sleep deprivation crushes my performance.

Recently, I pulled the pin 2000m into a 5k row the morning after a long nightshift. A couple days later, and a coupe of solid nights of sleep, and that same 5k row turned into a personal best.