The Sydney Swans are hoping the key to another premiership involves a bit of sleeping on the job.
The Swans on Wednesday unveiled a pair of new sleeping pods installed at the team’s SCG facilities, an AFL first the club is hoping improves on-field performance.
“There’s been a lot of research around napping during the day and certainly one of the advantages we have is that we have players who live between Bondi and Coogee and they can duck home and catch up on some work, or a bite to eat or have a quick relax at home,” Swans high performance operations manager Peter Berbarkov told SydneySwans.com.au.
Looking to make the most of the Buddy Franklin era and reclaim the AFL premiership after falling short against the Hawks last September, the Swans are banking on research that claims a short nap brings out the best in a person.
“If players need to catch up on sessions during the day, we’re providing them with the option to have a nap during the day which the research really supports,” Berbarkov added.
“Primarily we want to make sure the players are having good evening sleeps and we don’t want to disrupt that and we focus on making sure, after expending a lot of energy, they get up to nine hours of sleep to recover so this certainly isn’t a replacement for poor sleeping habits.
“The research is showing that anything between 15 and 25 minutes during the day helps cognitive function so learning ability, sharpness in the mind, as well as helping regenerate the body and physically preparing for afternoon sessions.
“So 15 to 25 minutes (of sleep) and hopefully that gives them the spike for the second half of the day after they’ve been training up to three and a half hours in the morning and then backing that up with a session in the afternoon.”
At $3,500 each, the sleep pods weren’t too steep of a price for Sydney to follow in the footsteps of a number of English Premier League clubs and defender Ted Richards has already given the new additions a glowing review.
“It’s not claustrophobic, it’s very cosy,” he said. “Early on in pre-season we were having hard sessions in the morning and another in the afternoon, so it was good to have a break between those.”
“In those two hours between the sessions, instead of going home I had a nap and you feel really fresh. It’s really convenient, you don’t have to waste time travelling home.”
Check out the full sleep pod video at SydneySwans.com.au.
Image: Facebook.
