BACKGROUND

Sleep is crucial for performance, overall health, and well-being. However, suboptimal sleep exists, particularly in the athletic population, due to factors that come with the responsibility of an athlete. The sleep health of athletes from combat sports like Amateur Boxing (AB), Wushu-Sanda (WS), and Pencak Silat (PS) have not received enough attention, even more so with the usage of Athlete Sleep Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) to discover the presence of possible clinical sleeping problems. Such sports use the anaerobic energy system which produces their quick and explosive movements, but is afflicted by disturbed sleep.

OBJECTIVE

The primary objective of the study is to describe the sleep health of AB, WS, and PS Philippine National Athletes using the ASSQ. This study is a continuation of predecessor research which instead focused on combat sports Judo and Taekwondo. The secondary objective is to correlate socio-demographic variables, which include: age, gender, current level of education, years of training in sport, years of training as a national athlete, weekly training hours, and current phase of the season to sleep health without identifying causation.

METHODOLOGY

This cross-sectional descriptive correlational study will utilize the total enumeration sampling method from 41 Philippine National Athletes from three sports. The data gathering will utilize (1) the socio-demographic questionnaire and (2) ASSQ on mobile devices during face-to-face procedures. The study will employ descriptive statistics to outline the characteristics of the data, while Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient will be used to examine the relationship.

EXPECTED RESULTS

The study expects to identify the sleep health of combat sports athletes competing in AB, PS, and WS using the ASSQ. It also determines an association between sleep health and sociodemographic variables.

BACKGROUND

Recovery is essential for high-intensity intermittent sports athletes to achieve optimal performance. Heart rate variability (HRV) serves as a marker of the autonomic nervous system, which also measures the parasympathetic regulation that facilitates recovery. Neurofeedback (NBF) intervention, combined with deep breathing and mental imagery, presented positive results in facilitating parasympathetic reactivation. However, limited studies exist in investigating the influence of the NBF intervention on HRV parameters and recovery, specifically in high-intensity intermittent sports athletes.

OBJECTIVE

This pilot study aims to investigate the effects and influence of neurobiofeedback intervention on recovery via the use of HRV of UAAP Collegiate Basketball and Football Athletes.

STUDY DESIGN

The research will be done with a Quasi-experimental onegroup pretest-posttest study design.

METHODOLOGY

Participants will undergo a neurobiofeedback intervention following neuromuscular and metabolic training. Data is collected with a Polar H10 HRM Chest Strap connected to an Elite HRV monitoring application and will be analyzed by Kubios HRV software.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Descriptive statistics will be computed for participant characteristics. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (p >0.05) will assess normality. Two-way repeated-measures ANOVAs will examine NBF effects across exercise types, with Bonferroni-corrected pairwise comparisons and trend analysis for the main effects and non-significant but clinically relevant patterns. All analyses will be done using SPSS v25.

EXPECTED RESULTS

It is expected that the neurobiofeedback intervention will have an effect and influence by eliciting a lower LF/HF ratio and SD1/SD2, suggesting a facilitated reactivation of the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting recovery after undergoing neuromuscular or metabolic training.

Human ; Neurofeedback