Earlier this month, via our Facebook fan page, we were asked a question by a parent who was concerned about multi-session meets.

I am interested in hearing opinions on how much to sleep/rest between prelims/finals. One caveat: this question is for a 15 year old girl who is still maturing. She is finaling at the sectional/zone level, and now has junior national cuts, so it’s an important issue for us going forward. Anyway, we have always been of the opinion that she needed to sleep as much as possible before finals, as in 1 1/2 to 2 hrs., especially since early prelims usually meant she’d not gotten as much sleep the night before as preferred (she’s a 9-10 hour a night sleeper left to her own devices). However, at a zone meet this summer when she had roommates from other teams, some had the opinion from their coaches that you should not sleep more than 45 min. to an hour b/c your muscles won’t have time to wake back up before finals. Anybody have an opinion on that or an experience to share?

 

Here’s my thoughts on the issue.

Sleeping between sessions is fairly common for swimmers, but the amount of time to spend on it really depends on how far apart sessions are. If you’ve got a 5 hour gap before you have to warmup, a 2 hour nap probably won’t be a problem. If the break is only 3 hours, you might limit your sleeping time to more like an hour. The important thing is to remember to wake up with plenty of time to get yourself loose and to restore your body to it’s waking functionality. As a good rule of thumb, try and be up and moving around about an hour before having to leave for the pool. This should give your body plenty of time to be ready to go.

A swimmer also has to know their own body. If you tend to feel really groggy after napping, then leave a little extra time to wake up. If you usually snap back to attention immediately when you alarm goes off, then the hour should be fine. Also be sure to leave time to eat before a nap, as eating right before finals could exacerbate any hangover from a mid-day nap.

The most important thing is that you get plenty of sleep on a regular basis. One of the most famous studies done on sleep and athletic performance was done with the Stanford swim team. After 6 weeks of getting 10 hours of sleep a night, 5 members of the team were able to improve their 15 meter times by .51 seconds, and their reaction times off the block by .15 seconds.

But this is a sleep debt that the athletes repaid over 6 weeks, and includes long periods of better sleeping habits. Other studies have demonstrated that one night of shortened sleep doesn’t have much of an effect, if any, on performance. If a swimmer is getting 9-10 hours of sleep a night, shortening a nap between sessions shouldn’t have a significant effect. If anything, swim coaches should rethink the seemingly pervasive theory that early-morning practices are a way to develop mentally tough, and therefore better trained, swimmers.

The biggest effect that getting up earlier than normal for a big meet can have on a swimmer is their mood and attitude. A cranky swimmer will not be mentally focused enough to swim well. So the biggest thing you can do for your swimmer is to not let her believe that an extra half-an-hour of sleep between sessions will make or break her meet. Keep her focused on racing and on the pure enjoyment of competition, and you’ll see the best results.