Can sleep hygiene interventions affect strength and power outcomes for female athletes?

Improved sleep can enhance sprint, endurance, and sports-specific skills; however, it is yet to be investigated whether improved sleep indices could enhance strength and power performance. Sleep hygiene (SH) is growing in popularity as a tool to enhance sleep indices amongst athletic cohorts, yet the optimal delivery strategy of sleep hygiene education is yet to be determined. Using a randomised, controlled design with repeated measures, this study recruited 34 female footballers playing in WSL or WSL academy league. Participants were split into 3 groups: one receiving both group-based and individualised sleep hygiene education, one receiving only group-based SH education and a control group receiving no education. Monitoring of sleep (actigraphy, diaries) and physical performance (countermovement jump, isometric mid-thigh pull) was carried out at week 1, week 4 and week 7. Split-plot ANOVAs were used to assess for differences between groups x weeks, and groups x time. Individualised sleep hygiene education resulted in significantly improved sleep duration (p =0.005), latency (p=0.006) and efficiency (p=0.004) at week 7 compared to controls, whilst also resulting in significantly improved countermovement jump scores (p=0.001) compared to control. Results of this study suggest that jump performance may be affected by sleep factors, and that individualised SH may be superior to group-based SH, providing information to coaches regarding training optimisation and the efficacy of SH education methods.

Keywords: sleep, female athletes, strength, sleep hygiene, countermovement jump