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Circadian chronotypes and their effect on athletic performance: a systematic review

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Abstract

Introduction

The individual differences in exogenous and endogenous factors influence the various physiological and psychological processes related to athletic performance. The chronotypes reflect innate variation, which is essential to consider for obtaining significant outcomes in sports competitions and optimizing adequate recovery during rehabilitation following an injury. This systematic review aims to investigate the effect of chronotypes on athletic performance in the athletic population.

Method

The literature search for this review was carried out till 30th June 2021 from the following electronic databases—PubMed and Scopus about PRISMA guidelines. Randomized controlled trials and crossover studies consisting of the effect of chronotype on athletic performance in athletes irrespective of age and gender and having full text available in the English language were included while unpublished, Ph.D. thesis and duplicates were excluded.

Result

Initially 936 articles were identified from electronic search and out of the 13 studies (PEDro score = 7.8) meet the inclusion criteria. Most of the studies (12 out of 13) demonstrated a significant influence of chronotype over athletic performance based on outcomes of the various physical performance test.

Conclusion

The present systematic review demonstrates that chronotypes affect the athletic performance. Twelve out of 13 were found to have a significant effect of chronotypes on athletic performance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, School of Nursing Sciences and Allied Health, Jamia Hamdard University, New Delhi, India

    Deep Maheshwari, Deepika Singla, Deepak Malhotra & Kalpana Zutshi

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  1. Deep Maheshwari
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  2. Deepika Singla
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  3. Deepak Malhotra
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Correspondence to Deepika Singla.

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Maheshwari, D., Singla, D., Malhotra, D. et al. Circadian chronotypes and their effect on athletic performance: a systematic review. Sport Sci Health 18, 1161–1177 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-022-00929-w

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