ArticleSports medicine international open2021
Exploring the Effect of Long Naps on Handball Performance and Heart Rate Variability.
Article in Sports medicine international open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The effect of daytime napping on the athletic performance of team ball sports athletes: systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Pooled it
- The Impact of Daytime Napping Following Normal Night-Time Sleep on Physical Performance: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis and Meta-regression.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2024Pooled it
- The Impact of Sleep Interventions on Athletic Performance: A Systematic Review.Sports medicine - open · 2023Pooled it
- Strategic daytime napping enhances agility and lowers perceived exertion but does not improve fatigue resistance in adolescent soccer players.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Daytime Napping Benefits Passing Performance and Scanning Activity in Elite Soccer Players.Journal of sports science & medicine · 2023Trial
- Article
- The effects, mechanisms and strategies of daytime napping on athletes: a narrative review.European journal of applied physiology · 2025Review
- Napping and heart rate variability in elite athletes.Biology of sport · 2024Article
- Elements of Sleep Breathing and Sleep-Deprivation Physiology in the Context of Athletic Performance.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This study explored the effect of long naps on handball-related performance and assessed the role of the cardiac autonomic nervous system in this process. Eleven male collegiate handball players performed a repeated sequential trial consisting of a 20-m consecutive turnaround run, 10-m run with a load, and shooting the ball into a target. Participants were allocated randomly and sequentially to have a short (20 minutes) nap, long (60 minutes) nap, or no nap. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used to assess regular sleep quality. Subjective sleepiness before and after napping was measured using the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale. Heart rate variability was recorded to assess cardiac autonomic nervous function during napping. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score was correlated with shot accuracy only after long naps (ρ=0.636, r=0.048). A negative correlation was observed between the root mean square of successive differences and average load run time (ρ=-0.929, p<0.001). Long napping was associated with a significant benefit on performance in athletes with poor sleep quality, implying a role of the autonomic nervous system in this regard. Our findings indicate the effect of sleep quality on the endurance and resistance of handball players.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.