Why is Sports Nutrition Sleep & Recovery so important?

At the most basic level, nutrition is important for athletes because it provides a source of energy required to perform the activity. The food we eat impacts on our strength, training, performance and recovery.  Not only is the type of food important for sports nutrition but the times we eat throughout the day also has an impact on our performance levels and our bodies ability to recover after exercising. 

Sleep deprivation can contribute to poor performance through reduced motivation and efficiency of cognitive processes, increasing perceived effort, and limiting physiological recovery responses. Monitoring the quality and quantity of sleep can aid in detecting poor sleep patterns and behavior. The use of diaries outlining hours of sleep and routines is encouraged. Recommendations for sleep patterns should be specific to each individual; however, at least 9-10 hours of sleep is a general recommendation, implemented within a routine of consistent sleeping and waking time. Knowledge surrounding sleep and its importance with regard to recovery, monitoring, and assessment is becoming consistently more predominant within the elite performance setting.

Recovery is becoming increasingly important to the high-performing athlete in a bid to reduce fatigue and enhance performance. Some of the more common recovery techniques utilized by athletes include hydrotherapy, active recovery, stretching, compression garments and massage. There has been a significant increase in research examining both the effects of recovery on performance and potential mechanisms. Recent research suggests that hydrotherapy, compression and massage can enhance acute performance when utilized appropriately. Athletes are encouraged to experiment with various recovery techniques to identify useful individualized recovery strategies.