Injury
Sport injuries can strike at any time. They can prevent an athlete from being able to train or compete, and sometimes for lengthy spells. For example, Manchester City footballer Leroy Sane damaged his anterior cruciate ligament in a 2019-2020 pre-season game, which kept him away from the game for 5 months - over half of the entire season!
Picking up an injury in the main, could be viewed as an unavoidable by-product of sport. However, research into sleep has shown that maintaining good sleeping habits can reduce your chance of injury.
Sleep helps reduce injuries
Von Rosen, Frohm, Kottorp, Friden, and Heijne (2017) found a reduction in sleep alongside an increase in training increases the risk of injury. They monitored the sleep, training, and injuries of 496 adolescent athletes from 16 different sports for a period of one year.
43% of athletes obtained an injury during the study. The researchers looked back on the sleep and training habits of those athletes for the week prior to an injury. They discovered that an increase in training duration and intensity, coupled with a reduction in sleep, made it twice as likely that an athlete would get injured.
Another relatively large study by Milweski et al. (2014) surveyed 112 high school athletes on how many hours sleep they acquired (on average) each night. The researchers then looked back at the school’s injury records, for the previous 21 months. They discovered that athletes who slept for less than 8 hours (on average) per night, were 1.7 times more likely to have had an injury compared to those who had slept for more than 8 hours.
Ballet is an activity which is associated with a high proportion of injuries. This is mainly due to the workload and repetitive nature of their movements.
Adam, Brassington, Steiner, and Matheson (2004) interviewed 54 professional ballet dancers, and discovered 87% had at least one injury (classified as being unable to dance for at least one day) in their most recent 10-month long 'season'. The researchers assessed the dancers sleep habits using the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, and found that those with better sleep duration and sleep quality had experienced less injuries.
The moral of the story
There appears to be strong evidence that suggests sleep influences your susceptibility to injury. The reasons why are not so clear, but sleep gives your body time to recover and prepare you for further training and competition. Regardless of the reasons, being injured can be painful and debilitating, it's no fun at all, not at any time, so be wise with your sleep to give yourself the best chance of staying fit and healthy.
Learn more.....
MODULE SLEEP
The impact on performance
References
Adam, M.U., Brassington, G.S., Steiner, H., & Matheson, G.O. (2004). Psychological factors associated with performance limiting injuries in professional ballet dancers. Journal of Dance Medicine and Science., 8, 43-46.
Milewski, M.D., Skaggs, D.L., Bishop, G.A., Pace, J.L., Ibrahim, D.A., Wren, T.A., & Barzdukas, A. (2014). Chronic lack of sleep is associaed with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes. Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics, 34, 129-133.
Von Rosen, P., Frohm, A., Kottorp, A., Friden, C., & Heijne, A. (2017). Multiple factors explain injury risk in adolescent elite athletes: applying a biopsychosocial perspective. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 27 (12), 2059-2069.