Effects of a short daytime nap on shooting and sprint performance in high-level adolescent athletes

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the research was to investigate the sport-specific performance effect of a brief afternoon nap on high-level Asian adolescent student-athletes that were habitually short sleepers. Methods: In the studies, participants were randomly assigned to a nap or non-nap (reading) condition. In the first study, 12 male shooters (13.8 ± 1.0 yrs) performed a shooting assessment (20 competition shots) with heart rate variability monitored during the assessment. In the second study, 19 male track & field athletes (14.8 ± 1.1 yrs) performed a 20m sprint performance assessment. Subjective measures of sleepiness and alertness were obtained in both studies. Results: The brief nap had no effect on any measure of shooting performance (p > 0.05) and autonomic function (p > 0.05) in shooters. However, fastest 20m sprint times increased significantly (p < 0.05) from 3.385 ± 0.128 sec to 3.411 ± 0.143 sec, with mean 2m times trending towards significance (p < 0.1) amongst the track & field athletes. No significant differences were observed in any other measures. Conclusions: The results of the research indicate varying effects of naps between sport-specific performance measures. Napping had no effect on shooting performance while a negative effect existed in 20-m sprint performance, potentially due to sleep inertia. Considering these findings, some caution is warranted when advocating naps for adolescent athletes.