SMART TRAINING STARTS WITH SLEEP

DID YOU KNOW THAT THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF SHUT-EYE AT THE RIGHT TIME CAN BOOST YOUR PERFORMANCE?

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By Mackenzie Lobby Havey

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Professional triathlete and IRONMAN champion Angela Naeth has experienced the negative effects poor sleep can have on training first-hand. While she can often push through regular training for a day or two after a poor night’s sleep, it eventually catches up with her. That’s when the legs start to feel heavy and paces that are typically pedestrian become suddenly next to impossible to maintain. “On those days I’m looking for caffeine right away,” she said. “I sometimes can get away with a lack of sleep for one day, but it hits me the next day if so.”

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To be sure, we’ve all experienced the agony of trying to complete a workout after a restless night of sleep. By understanding your own circadian rhythm and adjusting your sleep accordingly, you can easily skirt performance issues related to sleep deprivation.

Sleep and performance go hand in hand

The importance of sleep for athletic performance has been well documented. While experts are still trying to piece together why exactly a lack of sleep can tank your swimming, biking, and running abilities, just about any coach will tell you that adequate rest is part of the training, rather than the absence of it.

Marty Gaal, a coach based in Raleigh, North Carolina, says that poor sleep has a two-fold effect on training and racing. “The release of HGH while sleeping helps with muscle repair, so if you’re not getting enough sleep, you’re interrupting the body’s ability to repair muscles,” he explained. “Fatigue will also cause your training to be substandard. Coordination will be off, attention span will be off, and the desire to go long and hard will be impacted.”

“One of the top mistakes triathletes make is that they don’t get enough sleep and they underestimate the need for sleep,” said John Post, M.D., a Virginia-based doctor and six-time IRONMAN finisher. “When you’re training you need more sleep than usual to get that little extra bounce that’s not there otherwise.”

To be sure, the demands training puts on your body requires more rest than the Average Joe might need. Gaal recommends for every ten hours of exercise a week, you should try get about an extra hour of sleep than you normally would.

Understand your circadian rhythm

While it’s clear that sleep is important, a new study sheds further light on the issue, highlighting the fact that every athlete’s sleep needs are different. The study, published in the journal Current Biology, discovered that the timing of an athlete’s sleep cycle can actually affect athletic performance.

After splitting athletes into three groups—those who tended to be early risers, those who were somewhere in the middle, and those who were late risers—they found that the early risers tended to perform best in cardiovascular endurance tests midday, the middle risers performed best in the afternoon, and the late risers did best at night.

This suggests that adapting your sleep schedule to the start time of an upcoming event may help you perform better on race day. For instance, if you typically go to bed at 1:00 a.m. and wake up at 8:00 a.m., you may be able to improve your performance in a race simply by adjusting your sleep and wake times in the weeks prior. When you alter your schedule gradually over several weeks, your body will become better adapted to waking up at 5:00 a.m. on race day.

“If you are able to get to sleep even 45 minutes earlier in the one to two weeks before a race, it definitely can help,” added Gaal.

Naeth says she often has to alter her sleep schedule when she travels for races. “When I get to my pre-race destination, I force myself to go to bed at what would be a normal time if I lived there,” she said. “Depending on where I’m flying, I’ll stay up a bit on the flight out or try to nap right away.”

Of course, adjusting sleep and wake times can be easier said than done for busy triathletes with jobs, families, and other responsibilities on their plates. “There are some limits to what you can change when your life happening,” explained Post. “You’re not going to go to bed at 4:00 p.m.”

Indeed, there are limits to what you can change, but if it’s possible to make some adjustments, it’s well worth the effort. In the long run, the biggest influence on both amount of sleep the timing of your sleep is routine. When you try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day—and you get at least eight to nine hours of sleep—you may be potentially increasing your performance on race day.

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