Background: Sleep was viewed as vital for athletes’ recovery at the 2012 Olympic Games, and the
efforts of the sports science and psychology staff at the Australian Olympic team's
recovery centre included the use of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) as a relaxation
strategy to offset the psychological (cognitive) and physical (somatic) stressors
experienced by the athletes. Major competitions are too infrequent and competition
samples inaccessible, therefore the present study was conceptualised as an investigation
into the effectiveness of PMR as a non-pharmacologic sleep strategy in the wake of
the banning of selected pharmacologic sleep aides for Olympic athletes. Although widely
used with elite performers as a recovery and sleep aide, there is currently no empirical
evidence to support PMR use with this unique population. The effect of trait anxiety
has been implicated in sleep onset problems in general populations, but not in a performance
sample. Therefore the focus of this study was to evaluate the effects of a PMR intervention
on the sleep onset latency (SOL) of performers with high trait anxiety.
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© 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.
