Citation

Horgan BG, Drew MK, Halson SL, Piromalli LE, Drinkwater EJ, Chapman DW, Haff GG. Scand. J. Med. Sci. Sports 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/sms.13866

PMID

33124056

Abstract

Sport science and medicine practitioners are interested in the relationships between training load, injury and illness. The extent to which training preparedness is associated with workload-related injury and illness risk is debated. Therefore, this study applied multi-level mixed effect logistic regression to investigate time-dependent (±7- and ±28-day) relationships between training preparedness (fatigue, mood, motivation, soreness, stress, sleep duration and quality), training load, injury, and illness in 536 elite and pre-elite female netball athletes. Absolute risk (AR ± 95% CI) of sustaining an injury (0.98 ± 0.06%, n=1,122 injuries, N=254 athletes), or illness (1.09 ± 0.10%, n=2,881, N=432 athletes) was calculated. All training preparedness variables combined resulted in an absolute risk of 0.88-5.88% and 0.87-20% for injury, and illness respectively. Injury and illness had significant (p<0.05) bidirectional (i.e. both increased and decreased) associations with physical (soreness) and physiological (sleep duration and quality), while illness also had negative (mood, motivation) and positive (stress) associations with psychological training preparedness variables. Low sleep duration in the 48 h period prior was associated (p=0.005) with increased injury risk (OR=0.91±0.03; AR=4.00%), while 'very poor' sleep quality (OR=0.59±0.02; AR=7.83%) or extremes of too little (<5h, OR=1.01±0.03; AR=3.13-14.29%) and too much (>10h, OR=1.01±0.03; AR=2.61-10.98%) sleep had bidirectional associations (p<0.001) with an increased illness risk. Changes in training preparedness variables demonstrated bidirectional associations with injury, and illness. These outcomes suggest that sport science and medicine practitioners should monitor sleep, physical and psychological recovery status, to aid early detection and intervention regarding injury and illness symptomology.

Language: en

Keywords

Females; Injury prevention; Sleep; Elite and sub-elite athletes; Epidemilology; Medical aspects of sports; Training load