Taihoro vs Rita

Te Rehutai (copyright Adam Mustill)

On Saturday 12th October two futuristic sailing machines, Taihoro and Rita vie for the oldest international competition in sport – The America’s Cup.

Kiwis v Poms in a battle of the high seas. Burling v Ainslie.

Actually, this contest is a battle of teams. How does one team gain the edge over the other in terms of performance, physical and mental. Sailing, match racing as it is called at this level, takes a huge amount of mental preparation and cognitive ability. It is well known that cognitive ability drops off when sleep cycles are compromised [1]. Sleep cycles, particularly for athletes are affected by exercise, nutrition, travel schedules and emotional stimulus after competition.

In such situations the monitoring of an athletes sleep quality, and quantity is paramount so that it can be compared to baseline data gathered over time. In competitions that occur over long cycles, Olympics, World Cup etc., gathering consistent data is imperative to understanding how sleep is impacting the athlete.

At Footfalls, that technology now exists (and will be shown to the public in 3 weeks). The sleep technology we make allows for consistent, private sleep data to be gathered over the lifetime of the athlete’s career. So, whether you are sailing in Barcelona, Auckland or The Bahamas we can measure your sleep quantity, quality and in the near future respiration to allow classification of sleep cycles.

The America’s Cup will be won by the best team. In the next few cycles that team may be able to gather a 1% advantage using consistent and quantifiable sleep metrics.

Stay tuned for Footfalls’ sleep technology announcement in the next few days.

www.footfallsandheartbeats.com

[1] Cheri D. Mah, Kenneth E. Mah, Eric J. Kezirian, William C. Dement, The Effects of Sleep Extension on the Athletic Performance of Collegiate Basketball Players, Sleep, Volume 34, Issue 7, 1 July 2011, Pages 943–950, https://doi.org/10.5665/SLEEP.1132

Rita (copyright Ian Roman)