Moderate evidence

Extending sleep improves athletic performance in people who were under-slept.

In practice

The highest-yield recovery intervention is boring: go to bed earlier. It beats anything you can buy, and it's the first thing to fix before blaming your programme.

What it doesn't say

The best-known study is small, uncontrolled and in collegiate athletes. The direction is well supported; the size of the effect for an ordinary person isn't.

Source

• Mah CD, Mah KE, Kezirian EJ, Dement WC (2011). The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. Sleep, 34(7):943–950. doi.org/10.5665/SLEEP.1132