First thing that came up when I googled. I imagine if it impacts performance to that extend the cumulative effect on a season of training would be significant.
Wow interesting article. 3% of time of an hour TT would translate to a an awfully big difference in watts. In a way though I was kind right still. First study on this was in 2019 haha.
Lack of sleep can have severe mental and physical health issues. It lowers your immune system, increases anxiety and a list of other issues. I don’t have a study to quote that getting more sleep is good for you off the top of my head, but I can tell you that of my 20+ years coaching there is a major performance gap between those who get enough sleep and those who do not.
While there are always “exceptions to the rule” I can’t think of one athlete I have coached where those sacrificing sleep (long term) didn’t eventually wear down, get injured or have a mental health break down. Coaching high school athletes I have seen driven students try to survive on 3 hours of sleep a night due to academic load and be successful athletes and try to maintain social standing. It doesn’t work. Something has to give. I have seen athletes dedicate commit themselves to going to bed early and the impact is almost immediate.
I mean it was literally the first link I clicked after googling. 
Thread reminds me of one in the past and this video was linked into it… Sleep is your superpower, a Tedtalk worth watching all the way through… It’s enough evidence for me that sleep will improve all…
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Do you have a pull up bar at home? Hanging from it and doing pull ups keep my neck and back from tightening up.
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There is this noodle dish called Pho, it basically amounts to bone broth and rice noodles, it’s perfect for fixing this exact situation.
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My opinion on stretching and rolling is that the studies are looking at the wrong thing, every one I’ve looked at, they look at purely performance comparison to see if they have an impact.
But think of it this way - If they keep me flexible, from experiencing pain, keep me from tweaking something, and help keep me able to do my workouts without thinking about the pain in my knee or wherever, then that’s a HUGE benefit that wouldn’t be captured in any of those studies.
I would go to my grave that stretching, foam rolling, yoga, mobility work, etc. all have impacts that help you relax and help keep you limber and pain free, and that helps recovery and leads to better performance over time.
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I’m a big fan of Andrew Huberman. Some good episodes here relevant to both recovery/fitness and sleep. While I’m not going to go tell you to listen to every one, check out the show notes, check out some of his other episodes, and maybe pick a couple to listen to. I think the Andy Galpin Series is pretty interesting although you need some time on your hands to go through all of them.
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I think the Galpin series ended up being 24 hours altogether and I listened to the whole thing. Best thing I picked up from it? Breathe Right Strips! He mentioned waking up in the middle of the night with a dry mouth and still needing to urinate (so not dehydrated) and it has dramatically improved my sleep quality in that I can generally sleep through the night now.
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But how are you going to assess recovery objectively in a study? Recovery is multi faceted.
One could look at biomarkers that are associated with recovery. One could look at performance over time, controlling for sleep time.
Here is the thing though: sleep is often discussed in terms of “lack of sleep vs. adequate sleep” or “sleep more no matter what”.
I don’t doubt going from a state of lack of sleep to adequate sleep has huge benefits to recovery, performance, and pretty much every other health marker. However, I would be more surprised if we saw significant differences between a group that slept 9 hours vs. 10 hours.
Just simple math, going from 4 hours to 8 hours is a 100% increase. Going from 4 hours to 6 hours is still a 50% increase. Going from 9 hours to 10 hours is an 11% increase in sleep. Going from 8 hours to 10 hours is a 25% increase.
What’s more, people often say sleep more no matter what. What if the extra hour of sleep limits my ability to get a morning walk in? What if it means I have less time to make an adequate breakfast? Once you start to factor in other variables that happen in real life, it becomes less obvious that arbitrarily increasing sleep is always better (as long as you are starting at a state that is not sleep deprived).
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Yes and no.
Quality matters as well.
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Well, fundamentally I dont care about recovery, and it is not the same thing as performance. There are no medals given for being great at recovery. What I’d be interested is a study showing the connection between sleep and ability to improve power output. Which that stufy linked above sort of touched on, but seems like only a start at answering the question fully.
I agree with this. It’s definitely NOT more no matter what. I’m not going to sleep 24 hours a day, or even 16. 10 - 12 for me is EXTREMELY rare and when I’m catching up from being over-tired.
My opinion would be to strive for quality sleep, and wake naturally every day letting your body decide how much you need (Easier said than done). That’s almost never less than 7, most of the time around 8-9 for me.
Easier said than done though because of stress, life, work, etc, etc.
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Yes. 
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If you dont care about your recovery you are really saying dont care about your performance.
Without recovery from training there is no improved performance.
Training breaks you down, recovery from training load builds you stronger than before, pretty fundamental
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Agreed. I’m trying to think of an analogy and all I can come up with now is baking:
- I really like cake (performance)
- I also like ingredients & mixing them is fun (nutrition & training)
- However, I don’t care about baking in the oven (recovery)
These are all parts of the entire process to make a final product. If people neglect any part of the process, the end result will suffer.
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Saying that you don’t think sleep helps recovery or that recovery doesn’t impact performance is a little bit like saying I don’t believe the sky is blue unless you show me a study that specifically says the sky is blue and I don’t want to go looking for it myself. Anyways, I feel like I’ve seen hundreds of references to sleep, recovery, and performance, but here’s a start:
There are clear negative effects of sleep deprivation on performance, including reaction time, accuracy, vigor, submaximal strength, and endurance. Cognitive functions such as judgment and decision-making also suffer. Sleep extension can positively affect reaction times, mood, sprint times, tennis serve accuracy, swim turns, kick stroke efficiency, and increased free throw and 3-point accuracy
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On this note, what improved my sleep tremendously was a) septoplasty and turbinate reduction and b) sleeping on my back. As a long time stomach-sleeper this was a few months in the making and I still have restless nights where I’d go from stomach to side to back and sleep like shit. I find sleeping on my back helps me breathe better which in turns leads me to sleep better.
I now want to try out these strips and see if they improve my sleep even more. I take quality over quantity (to a certain degree of course). I don’t think I could sleep 10+ hours even without the baby or hungry cats waking us up during the night/in the morning.
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