Investigation of the effects of sleep deprivation on anaerobic performance and recovery process

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of sleep deprivation on anaerobic performance and recovery process. Twelve healthy males were volunteered to participate in this study. The order of the trials was assigned to the subjects in a randomized cross-over design and the tests were performed 1 week apart. Measurements were performed following a reference normal sleep night (RS), a partial sleep deprivation (PSD) and full night sleep deprivation (FNSD). Static and dynamic root mean square values were recorded from vastus medialis (VM), vastus lateralis (VL) and gastrocnemius (GSC) muscles. Peak power (PP), average power (AP), fatigue index (FI), heart rate at rest (HRR) , peak heart rate (PHR), blood lactae at rest (BLR) and peak blood lactate (PBL) were collected for each trial. Half life of lactate (HLL) was computed by using blood laktate levels measured after high intensity exercise to monitor the recovery process. After the statistical analysis significant decrease was determined in RMS values of VM muscle after the full sleep deprivation condition (F(2-22)=4,983; p=0,016). No significant difference was shown between trials regarding to normalized RMS values of VL and GSC muscles. There were no significant differences between trials with respect to izometric RMS values, PP, AP, FI, HRR, PHR, BLR, PBL and HLL (p>0,05). As a conclusion, 36 hours of sleep deprivation caused reduction in RMS values of VM muscle. On the other hand, except normalized RMS values of VM muscle, other performance parameters were not effected by sleep deprivation. Key Words: sleep deprivation, anaerobic performance, half life of lactate, recovery