“It [sleep] is something that I’m experimenting with now to try to get us to a point where we can come out and be a little bit more sharp…Our attention span isn’t always the greatest.” 

-Brian Shaw, Denver Nuggets Coach, on canceling morning shoot around to give players more time to sleep

Athlete sleep has been in the news recently, especially the NBA. Denver Nuggets coach Brian Shaw has decided to abolish early morning shoot around before games in order to give his players more time to sleep. This comes on the heels of multiple athletes taking proactive rest, including Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Derrick Rose and, of course, the San Antonio Spurs’ annual efforts to rest Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili for the playoffs. Relatedly, ESPN began a series on concerns about the NBA’s scheduling of back-to-back games for the impact on rest and recovery. In response to news about Shaw’s decision, ESPN analyst Kevin Pelton recently emphasized the sport science work being done in this area:

There’s some science to this too. In an Insider series on the NBA’s schedule, Dr. Charles Czeisler, director of the sleep medicine division at Harvard Medical School, informed us that lack of sleep can have serious negative effects on a player.

You lose significant reaction time,which can cause injury, and retention of information is diminished if you don’t get enough zzz’s. Furthermore, testosterone levels can be drastically depleted if a player has a sleepless night or a series of abbreviated nights of sleep.

Parents of developing athletes, take note. Taking rest and sleep seriously isn’t just for professional athletes. Your child too can benefit from what the research on sleep and athletic performance has been saying. As it concerns psychomotor functioning, sleep researchers have found that:

Slow wave sleep ensures the release of growth hormone, which promotes protein synthesis for body repair

Stage 2 harvests sprindle production, which integrates motor learning and any implicit learning.

 REM (dream) sleep sharpens spatial orientation and perceptual skills for things like hearing important sounds and performance of visual perception tasks


When Stanford Men’s basketball players slept for 10 hours a night, free throw accuracy and sprint times improved above baseline.

In many ways, the sleep research seems to confirm our common sense suspicions about the day-to-day impact of sleep. Yet, consistent quality sleep eludes teenagers and adults alike. Parents today know the challenge of convincing your teenage son or daughter to turn off their smartphone and hit the lights. Of course, therein lies the heart of the matter: habits & lifestyle. We know that the beneifts of sleep won’t acrue simply because we know the benefits of sleep! There has to be a commensurate change in evening routine. Noted expert Cheri Mah points this out

A strong foundation of good sleep habits is essential and is especially helpful when you may have difficulty sleeping during competition or post-exercise

Fine-tuning performance to help a child reach their maximum potential is not achieved through “six easy steps” or with one fell swoop. It is a process that requires an in-depth understanding of all of the various components that encompass success. Sleep is just one of these components.

The KPA Elite Parent Program is an invaluable resource for sport parents who are fully committed to doing whatever is necessary to ensure their child does not leave any potential on the table. Gaining access to an advanced method for pursing elite performance is only the initial step. What follows is a progression of knowledge that will build and strengthen your child’s future.

For information regarding with KPA Elite Parent Program, click here.

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