The night-time sleep and autonomic activity of male and female professional road cyclists competing in the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes

Objective The objective of this study was to examine the capacity of male and female professional cyclists to recover between daily race stages while competing in the 109th edition of the Tour de France (2022) and the 1st edition of the Tour de France Femmes (2022), respectively. Methods The 17 participating cyclists were 8 males from a single team (aged 28.0 ± 2.5 years [mean ± 95% confidence interval]) and 9 females from two separate teams (aged 26.7 ± 3.1 years). Cyclists wore a fitness tracker (WHOOP 4.0) to capture recovery metrics primarily related to night-time sleep and autonomic activity. Data were collected for the entirety of the events and for 7 days of baseline before the events. The primary analyses tested for a main effect of ‘stage type’ – i.e., rest, flat, hilly, mountain or time trial for males and flat, hilly or mountain for females – on the various recovery metrics. Results During baseline, total sleep time at night was 7.2 ± 0.3 h for male cyclists and 7.7 ± 0.3 h for female cyclists, sleep efficiency (i.e., total sleep time as a percentage of time in bed) was 87.0 ± 4.4 % for males and 88.8 ± 2.6 % for females, resting heart rate was 41.8 ± 4.5 beats·min-1 for males and 45.8 ± 4.9 beats·min-1 for females, and heart rate variability during sleep was 108.7 ± 17.0 ms for males and 119.8 ± 26.4 ms for females. During their respective events, total sleep time at night was 7.2 ± 0.1 h for males and 7.5 ± 0.3 h for females, sleep efficiency was 86.4 ± 1.2 % for males and 89.6 ± 1.2 % for females, resting heart rate was 44.5 ± 1.2 beats·min-1 for males and 50.2 ± 2.0 beats·min-1 for females, and heart rate variability during sleep was 99.1 ± 4.2 ms for males and 114.3 ± 11.2 ms for females. For male cyclists, there was a main effect of ‘stage type’ on recovery, such that heart rate variability during sleep was lowest after mountain stages. For female cyclists, there was also a main effect of ‘stage type’ on recovery, such that the percentage of light sleep in a sleep period (i.e., lower-quality sleep) was highest after mountain stages. Conclusions Some aspects of recovery were compromised in cyclists after the most demanding days of racing, i.e., mountain stages. Overall however, the cyclists obtained a reasonable amount of good-quality sleep while competing in these highly demanding endurance events. This study demonstrates that it is now feasible to assess recovery metrics in professional athletes during multiple-day endurance events using validated fitness trackers. ### Competing Interest Statement Charli Sargent, Dean J. Miller and Gregory D. Roach are members of a research group at CQUniversity that receives support for research (i.e., funding, equipment) from Whoop, Inc.; Emily R. Capodilupo is a shareholder and employee of Whoop, Inc; Jeremy Powers and Summer Jasinski are employees of Whoop, Inc. ### Funding Statement This study did not receive any funding. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: Ethics committee of Central Queensland University gave ethical approval for this work. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors.