The Relationship of Travel Demands With Perceived Fatigue, Sleep, and Wellness of Female National Team Footballers.

PURPOSE: To assess the relationship between travel variables and perceived fatigue, sleep, stress, soreness, and overall wellness responses in female national team footballers.

METHODS

Details of 342 flights over a 3-year period from 45 professional footballers in a women's national team were collated and confirmed with an online flight database; including duration, time zone difference, direction, trip type, and arrival/departure times. Perceptual ratings of fatigue, sleep, stress, and soreness were self-reported for up to 3 days posttravel. Linear mixed-effects models assessed associations between travel variables and perceptual responses as outcome variables. Post hoc pairwise comparisons were conducted with estimated marginal means to assess differences between categorical variables (significance at P < .05).

RESULTS

Larger time zone changes were associated with increased fatigue, poorer sleep, and worse total wellness scores (P < .001). Eastward travel was associated with poorer perceived responses than westward, with higher fatigue (P = .003), sleep (P = .001), and total wellness (P = .026). Morning arrivals were associated with better fatigue and sleep ratings than evening (P < .001), while daytime departures observed reduced fatigue (P = .013) and soreness (P = .004) compared with morning. Return trips were associated with greater fatigue than outbound or transition trips (P < .001). Most measures improved 2 days postarrival (P < .001). However, mostly small or trivial effect sizes were observed, and all models had low explanatory power (marginal R2 = .001-.10).

CONCLUSIONS

Larger time zone shifts, eastward travel, and evening arrivals had small associations with poorer fatigue, sleep, and total wellness, while westward travel and morning arrivals yielded small improvements. Overall, travel variables explained limited variance in wellness ratings, suggesting other factors also influence posttravel responses.