Effect of Sleep Deprivation Before Physical, Mental, Observational and Combined Training on the Acquisition and Retention of Badminton Short Service Skills

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation before physical, mental, observational and combined training on the acquisition and retention of badminton short service skills. The participants were volunteers who were 180 male students aged 19-25 years. After initial screening, the subjects were divided into four experimental groups (physical, observational, mental and combined training) and four paired control groups who were subjected to badminton short service training. The experimental groups trained with 24-h sleep deprivation and the control group trained without sleep deprivation. In the acquisition stage, each subject trained using his customary training method. After training, the subjects followed a normal day-night sleep pattern. At 24, 72 and 168 h after acquisition, a short-service retention test was taken by participants. The data was analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (4 ´ 2 ´ 3). The results show that acquisition and retention in both the physical and combined groups were not affected by sleep deprivation (P>0.05). Skill acquisition in the observation group was not affected by sleep deprivation (P>0.05); however, in the retention tests, the control group showed significantly better performance. Skill acquisition in the mental training group was significantly affected by sleep deprivation and this effect was evident in the retention tests (P<0.05). The results indicate that, under conditions of sleep deprivation, physical and combined training are preferred when training to acquire new skills.