Getting Young Athletes to Prioritize Sleep for Better Performance

Among the challenges strength and conditioning coaches and athletic trainers face is getting student athletes out of their comfort zone to develop optimal wellness and game preparation habits. For high school and college coaches, are your athletes regularly choosing fries and pepperoni pizza for lunch instead of healthier options such as fruit and protein-rich Greek yogurt, resulting in subpar sports practices or weight room sessions? Are they skipping pre-season team workouts (undertraining), leaving their timing off in practice drills? Or the opposite, are they overtraining every day in the gym, causing chronic muscle or joint soreness and affecting their baseball hitting or tackling technique in football?

Or maybe, it’s simply insufficient recovery from intense practices or games that’s hindering progress?

Certainly, adequate nutrition, exercise, and practice time all influence their mental and physical effectiveness on the field, track, ice, basketball court, wrestling mat, or in the weight room, as does physical therapy or a rehab program for overcoming an injury. But the often-underestimated ingredient your athletes seemingly trivialize for enhancing strength and speed training, sports performance, injury recovery, and recuperation from grueling practices and games is spelled S-L-E-E-P!

Although medical and fitness professionals (including school athletic trainers and strength coaches) generally recognize that sleep deprivation is a root cause of diminished mental and physical performance in academics and athletics, as well as lower resistance to illness—causing student athletes to miss classes, important practices, games, and workouts—the quandary for coaches is how to impress upon their athletes that their amount of sleep positively or negatively impacts sports performance. In a December 13, 2023 article on the National Sleep Foundation’s website (“How Much Sleep Do Student Athletes Need?”), staff writer Danielle Pacheco mentions, “In addition to nutrition and physical exercise, sleep plays an essential role in helping athletes achieve optimal performance. Unfortunately, student athletes often juggle a variety of commitments that can make it difficult to meet sleep needs.”¹

The quandary for coaches is how to impress upon their athletes that their amount of sleep positively or negatively impacts sports performance, says Jim Carpentier. Share on X

So, how much sleep should a coach and athletic trainer advise athletes to consistently get each night to gain strength and muscle in the weight room, be faster and more powerful on the field, or facilitate sports, exercise, or injury recovery? Pacheco says, “Our guidelines state that teens (ages 13-18 years) should be getting between 8 and 10 hours of sleep every night.”¹

Back to That Sleep “Quandary”

Telling your athletes to get the recommended 8-10 hours of night sleep is like the proverbial “You can lead a horse to water but can’t make him drink it.” Remember, they’re teenagers staying up late texting friends or watching their favorite sports team on TV or studying for two final exams or on the phone with their girlfriend or boyfriend. So, attempting to make them change their pre-bedtime routines each night in favor of going to sleep earlier is easier said than done—unless you as coach or athletic trainer can provide convincing evidence on how sleep boosts sports performance.

Citing professional athletes touting sleep as a performance aid (shown below) reinforces that convincing evidence for prompting student athletes to alter sleep habits.

1. What Can Coaches Do?

Relate to your team how professional athletes have correspondingly elevated athletic performance from improved sleep habits. One pro athlete in particular—Major League Baseball pitcher Justin Verlander—attributed his successful career in part to smart sleep habits, even swaying his teammate Alex Bregman to increase sleep (which ultimately helped lead to increased home run production).

In a New York Times July 9, 2019, article (“Justin Verlander: The Astros Ace and Sleep Guru”), writer James Wagner begins by stating: “It was early May 2018 and Alex Bregman, the Houston Astros’ star third baseman, had only one home run on the season. His teammate Justin Verlander, one of the best pitchers of this generation, noticed Bregman’s low power and hints of fatigue, and asked how many hours Bregman had slept the night before. Six, Bregman answered. And his normal amount? Six as well.” Wagner says that Verlander was “bewildered” by Bregman’s replies and told his 25-year-old teammate that “he slept at least 10 hours a night and said Bregman should start getting more hours himself.” To which Bregman responded, “I felt that’s overdoing it. You shouldn’t sleep that much. Then I started sleeping that much and, next thing you know, I hit 30 homers after that.”

As for Verlander, Wagner mentions that the pitcher’s career dominance is grounded in getting “a lot of sleep… Verlander aims for 10 hours a night. ‘And if I need more, I’m not afraid to just sleep more,’ the pitcher states.” Verlander tells Wagner that “Sometimes eight or nine hours leaves him refreshed,” and that “Other times he gets eleven or even twelve.”²

2. What Can School Athletic Trainers Do?

Tell student athletes how NBA athletic trainers recognize sleep’s positive impact on their players’ performance and how a college basketball team benefited from getting more sleep.

Tell student athletes how NBA athletic trainers recognize sleep’s positive impact on their players’ performance and how a college basketball team benefited from getting more sleep, says Jim Carpentier. Share on X

An October 23, 2014, article in ESPN Magazine (“Athlete Monitoring in the NBA”) discusses the Dallas Maverick’s athletic training staff’s focus on their players getting ample sleep. Says Casey Smith, Maverick’s Head Athletic Trainer: “If you told an athlete you had a treatment that would reduce the chemicals associated with stress, that would naturally increase growth hormone, that enhances recovery rate, that improves performance, they would all do it. Sleep does all of those things.”⁴ The ESPN article further expounds on a Stanford School of Medicine 2011 study on how extended sleep duration affects athletic performance. The study observed eleven varsity men’s basketball team players and showed that increasing sleep to 10 hours a night reduced injury risk, and improved players’ reaction times, sprint times, and free-throw percentages.³

And here’s another example where school athletic trainers can cite sleep’s relevance among pro athletes: In a November 17, 2017, article on the website espn.com (“Cleveland Cavaliers Say Adjustment in Travel Itinerary Helping Team on Road Trips”), the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers Head Athletic Trainer Steve Spiro said: “The biggest thing for recovery is sleep. There isn’t anything better, and for these guys that are taxing their bodies through travel and through their workload on the court, and practice, and extra work or whatever, we can have all the technology in the world, but obviously a great night’s sleep plays a role into performance. There’s no doubt about it. So you have to have your finger on the pulse of it.”⁴

Other Ways Coaches and Athletic Trainers Can Compel Athletes to Sleep More

From a personal perspective, having served as both a high school strength and conditioning coach and college athletic conditioning specialist, I would repeatedly ask the basic question to each student-athlete—whether seeing them in the weight room, athletic training room, or in the hallway at school: “are you eating and sleeping well?”

Oftentimes, the athletes were startled by this simple and random question. If they replied “yes,” I followed up asking them if they had a good breakfast, for instance. Unsurprisingly, some said they didn’t have time for breakfast, or they had a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on the go. I gave them an imaginary A, B, C, D, or F grade on their response. Those that skipped breakfast got an F grade; those that had the bacon, egg and cheese sandwich got a B grade and I told them if they included some fruit with the breakfast, it would have merited an A grade.

The same grading system applied to the amount of sleep they had the night before. Those with 5, 6, or at most 7 hours got a D or F, while anyone with at least 8 or more hours got B or A grades. This was all designed to motivate them to improve their dietary and sleep habits. And don’t laugh, when they came back and asked me if I was eating and sleeping well? “Of course,” I said. “And what did you have for breakfast?” they asked. I told them fruit, a couple of eggs, oatmeal, some yogurt, water, and tea, and got between 9 and10 hours of sleep the night before—to prove a point of practicing what you preach.

• Strength and Conditioning Coaches: Instill the message to student athletes that strength and size gains will not occur—no matter how many bench presses, squats, or deadlifts are performed—unless they’re getting at least 8 hours or more of sleep each night. Almost like a bribe: You won’t get stronger or bigger unless you get more sleep!
• School Athletic Trainers: Tell injured athletes with sprains, strains, or broken bones, or other injuries, that if they want to resume sports sooner rather than later, make sure they’re getting the extra sleep and rest required for enabling a more effective and speedier recovery.
• Sports Team Coaches: Make the message loud and clear to your athletes that getting plenty of sleep is as necessary as the foods and beverages consumed and their exercises in the gym to be more alert, focused, and energized during practices and games! Continue driving home sleep’s importance the night before a big game that can spell the difference between going to the playoffs or ending the season earlier; or warning them that if they don’t take sleep seriously, they’re more likely to be lethargic and lose concentration at key points in games—making mental and physical errors that can cost the team a victory.

A Final Message

Team Coaches, Strength and Conditioning Coaches, Athletic Trainers: Practice what you preach to your athletes! Be a role model. Let them know how much better you feel mentally and physically, calmer and more patient from getting enough sleep, and that you will make sure to go to bed earlier, so you’re as refreshed and well-prepared for tomorrow’s game as the players!

Be a role model. Let (athletes) know how much better you feel mentally and physically… and that you will make sure to go to bed earlier, so you’re as refreshed and well-prepared for tomorrow’s game as the players! Share on X

As previously mentioned, during my career, I felt it of utmost importance to take an interest in the wellness of student-athletes to motivate them by those basic questions of whether they were eating or sleeping well, and giving them examples of the nutritious breakfast foods I consumed and the beneficial amount of sleep I was getting as guidelines. This further encouraged them to improve their sleep and eating habits, and show them the necessity of “practicing what you preach.”

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