Personally I find chronic 'less than optimal' sleep effects me but can get away with hardly any sleep and still perform if it is short lived. I am mainly talking from a resistance training perspective. :)

Have a look at Stanley Coren's book 'Sleep Thieves.' It looks in detail the effect of sleep on biological systems for daily activities etc but can be related very well to athletes.

The two most important factors in recovery is nutrition and sleep. Without adequate sleep, sympathetic nervous system is overly dominant, not enough rest for cellular growth and repair, mood states, stress, etc will all have negative impact on performance whether it is the immediate session or recoverying from a session which will impact on the next session.

There is a lot of research on this area regards to recovery, napping between workouts and health. Also the quality and type of sleep is important for performance and recovery.

Agree,
Sleep is crucial for performance. Ideally you should be asleep by 10.30 pm. Between 10.30pm and 2.30am (average) is you "physiological repair stage". For every hour you are asleep before midnight also counts double as such! If you go to bed at 2.30 am for instance you can still feel fine as you will get mental repair but if you try to physically perform you will feel a huge difference. Again Alex is correct with his statement on Sympathetic Nervous system dominance.
Also ideally you should be getting 8 hours.
Paul

i remember reading an article about sleep, it says that sleep deprivation can decrease VO2 max, is that true?

I dont know if it would decrease VO2 max (may struggle to get accurate test data of VO2 max if sleep deprived) but would probably effect running economy and percentage of VO2 to failure at a given intensity. Also may affect lactate threshold

Hill et al. (1994) found no changes in anaerobic or aerobic contribution to the total amount of work performed following 25-30hrs of sleep deprivation. They concluded that "in both males and females, there are no changes in the contributions of the aerobic and anaerobic energy systems to high-intensity exercise performed following the loss of one night's sleep".

Souissi et al. (2003) found no changes in blood lacatate concentrations before or after 24 hours of sleep loss following the Wingate test.
However, after 36 hours without sleep power output variables (Pmax, Ppeak and Pmean) were impaired.

Interestingly Pierce et al. (1993) studied the effects of one hours sleep prior to a progressive incremental exercise test to volitional exhaustion (VO2max). There was no difference between having one hours sleep or not before the test in running economy or VO2. However, the participants in the sleep condition exhibted a significantly greater running economy during the first two stages of the test. Whilst the participants with no sleep showed greater econonmy throughout the latter stages.

I find it difficult to accept that athletes will be sleep deprived for 34hours. However, when athletes pass through time zones when travelling to competitions, will this have a similar effect by influencing circadian rythms? I know Liverpool John Moores have conducted research into this area but i havent looked at it in depth. Does anyone have any thoughts?

My experience is that athletes seem not to affected by occasionnal acute lack of sleep ex: getting to sleep late or having a bad case of nerves the night before an important event.

However chronic sleep deprivation (quantity and quality) is destructive.

I think we should also be looking at the effects of total darkness as an important issue to the quality of sleep. Has anyone seen anything writen on the effects of total darkness on the hormonal cascade while sleeping?

Koach

It is obvious from the previous posts on this thread that sleep is of vital importance.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the use of short periods of sleep immediately following workouts and whether it is beneficial?

Do you mean immediatley after a training session because thats an interesting thought. Im not sure how practical that would be as most athletes have to cool down, stretch, drive home, eat food etc sometimes they just dont have time. Where would they sleep?How long would they sleep for? But if its possible to do after a proper cool down and food would it enhance recovery? Think you would have to look at sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system effects on recovery there.

There is research on the effects on sleep after training. It has already been shown that sleep is a major factor in recovery and along with nutrition is the most important factor.

I know that the RFU has purchased beds and/or matresses for the leading England players in the country to enhance their recovery. I also seen schedules for the RFU on camps etc where there is sleep scheduled in the day between sessions.

Agree that you need to look at the autonomic nervous system as well as the sleep cycles. I was listening to Istvan Bayli last year speaking about sleep. He did not allow his athletes to sleep more than 30 minutes and woke them up fully (using ice baths for feet).

Again this can be linked to the other thread - practical experience and scientific evidence. IS this proven to work or has the coaches experienced great results? The RFU are very progressive so would say there is good research out there to back this up although not looked at it enough.

Alex,

Do you know when specifically the RFU schedule sleep? How long are the recomended to sleep for? does it depend on the training day? I know a lad whos in the england sevens team and they sleep alot!

I dont have specifics but I believe that it depends on the training volume/intensity and preparation period. I can find out for you if needed.

Allan,

Yeah I meant after a training session including normal cool down, nutrition routine etc.

Alex,
I would be interested in knowing about the RFU sleep schedule.

The reason I ask is that I have some input into the training schedule of a world champion masters athlete, who completes a heavy training load each week.

im sick and tired of people going on and on about sleep !!!!
im 18 years old and round my ends considerd a nutter me and my mates go to partys all the time!
Take last week for example ...
Me and my girls went out last weekend and there was a party on
friday started at 6 finshed sunday at 6
it was amazing !!
who needs sledp

Judging by the fact you cannot spell "sleep" then i guess it proves that you need "sleep" :-)