In the current study 12 aerobically fit and 12 sedentary older men und
erwent two nocturnal polysomnographic (PSG) studies. A control PSG was
conducted following a day without aerobic activity, whereas a postexe
rcise PSG study was conducted following an afternoon session of exhaus
tive aerobic exercise. In addition to deriving usual sleep parameters,
a computer scoring program was used to count the number of individual
electroencephalographic (EEG) slow waves in each PSG tracing. Multiva
riate and univariate analyses showed that the fit subjects had shorter
sleep onset latencies, less wake time after onset, fewer discrete sle
ep episodes, fewer sleep stage shifts during the initial portion of th
e night, less stage 1 sleep, a higher sleep efficiency and more total
slow waves during both PSGs than did the sedentary subjects. Although
no main effects were found for the acute exercise challenge, post hoc
analyses showed that high levels of body heating during exercise predi
cted increased sleep fragmentation for both fit and sedentary subjects
. These findings provide initial support for the contention that exerc
ise and fitness may have significant effects on the sleep of older men
. However, results also suggest that high levels of body heating resul
ting from a single exercise challenge may have adverse effects. Implic
ations of the study are discussed and suggestions for future research
are provided.