Fight Medicine Research Institute

Version of recordOriginal research

Sleep Data, Physical Performance, and Injuries in Preparation for Professional Mixed Martial Arts

Corey A Peacock, Mauricio Mena, Gabriel J Sanders, Tobin A Silver, Douglas Kalman, Jose Antonio. 2018. Sports.

Published in Sports, a peer-reviewed journal

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.3390/sports7010001

Read the full textPDF filesPubMed 30577414

The medical question

How does sleep during a fight camp relate to a fighter’s physical condition and ability to keep training?

The Fight Medicine Research Institute uses this evidence to frame questions about sleep during preparation for a bout and how it can be measured. The study’s size, eight professional MMA fighters during a six-week fight camp, determines which questions it can inform.

Summary

In eight professional MMA fighters monitored through a six-week fight camp, several sleep measures from a wrist-worn monitor were correlated with fitness test results and with missed training sessions.

What the work reports

  • Eight male professional MMA fighters wore a wrist sleep monitor throughout a six-week fight camp. Seven days before competition they completed physical tests (vertical jump, sled push, treadmill VO2max, heart rate recovery and pull-ups), and injuries and missed sessions were recorded.
  • The authors report significant correlations between sleep latency (the time taken to fall asleep) and VO2max (r = -0.860), heart rate recovery, sled push time, vertical jump and missed sessions; between sleep efficiency and heart rate recovery (r = -0.891); and between variance in the time of falling asleep and missed sessions (r = 0.788). In the article’s Table 2, total sleep time was not significantly correlated with any measure, and no sleep measure was significantly correlated with the number of injuries.
  • The authors conclude that fighters with more consistent sleep showed better performance test results and missed fewer sessions, and that keeping a consistent sleep schedule may be beneficial.

Limits to keep in mind

  • Eight athletes, all men in one weight division, followed through a six-week fight camp. The authors describe the sample size as limited.
  • Observational and correlational: the study cannot show that sleep caused the differences in test results or missed sessions. The authors note that injury timing and missed practices were uncontrolled and could also relate to the test results.
  • Many correlations were tested in a very small sample, and the article reports no adjustment for multiple comparisons.

Source issues recorded

  • The abstract and the text describe eight athletes. Table 1 of the article gives n = 7, and a mean age of 27.2 years where the text gives 27.7.
  • The text gives the correlations between sleep latency and sled push time, and between variance in sleep onset and heart rate recovery, as negative; Table 2 gives both as positive. The abstract reports a significant correlation between sleep efficiency and missed practice sessions; Table 2 gives p = 0.127 for that pair. This record does not quote those values.
  • The article was published online on 20 December 2018. The publisher’s Crossref deposit dates its journal issue (volume 7, issue 1) January 2019. Europe PMC gives the publication year as 2018, which this record uses.

Publication status and notices

Published in Sports, a peer-reviewed journal. Original research article in Sports.

Form of this work: Version of record. The version of record is the final article as issued by its publisher.

No correction or retraction notice was found in Crossref or Europe PMC when this record was checked.

Fight Medicine Research Institute contribution

Fight Medicine Research Institute selected and catalogued this study, prepared an original research summary, verified its bibliographic details, and maintains the associated citation record.

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Article details

Relationship
External research catalogued by the Fight Medicine Research Institute. The original authors, journal and DOI are unchanged.
Published online
20 December 2018
Repository date
20 December 2018 (Europe PMC first-publication date)
Date used here
20 December 2018 (Crossref publisher deposit, online publication date)
Rights
CC BY 4.0. Open access under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0), as recorded by Europe PMC and the licence link in the source record. The summary on this page is Fight Medicine Research Institute’s own wording. No text or figure from the article is reproduced here. Licence terms.
Source check
, against PubMed Central full text, Crossref and Europe PMC. Checked under the direction of Casey C. Sears, Founder. An LLM was utilized as a research tool with direct human oversight.
Appraisal
The check covered bibliographic details, links, licence and notices. It is not a formal critical appraisal of the full paper.
Clinical review
None. This record is a research summary, not clinical education.
Funding and conflicts
The article states no external funding and no conflict of interest. The acknowledgments thank Fatigue Science, the maker of the sleep monitor used, for technology assistance.
Catalog
FH-054, added

Cite the original work

These files cite the work by its own authors, journal and DOI. Fight Medicine Research Institute appears only in a note, as curator of this catalog page.

Corey A Peacock, Mauricio Mena, Gabriel J Sanders, Tobin A Silver, Douglas Kalman, Jose Antonio. Sleep Data, Physical Performance, and Injuries in Preparation for Professional Mixed Martial Arts. Sports. 2018;7(1):1. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports7010001

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