Finding the best mattress for athletes
Everybody needs to sleep, but some need it more than others. Whether you are a professional athlete or a dedicated amateur, your body’s recovery is absolutely vital to your performance. Running, swimming, weightlifting – even yoga – are all straining your body and its many muscles. It’s a good strain and you certainly should be doing it, but at the end of the day, you need the best mattress for athletes to speed your recovery along.
If you wake up sore and stiff, the last thing you want to do is to go back out and exercise. Sleeping is just one of many aspects that athletes need to optimize. But do athletes really need to buy different mattresses than everybody else? Of course not, a standard good-quality mattress is more than adequate for most people, but certain mattresses have been designed with athletes in mind, and if you’re looking for that extra 5 or 10% then one of these could be for you.
If we’re talking about fine tuning for optimal performance, there’s a lot to bear in mind if you’re choosing a mattress for athletes. Are you looking for something with specific pressure relief or perhaps with excellent temperature regulation? What kind of firmness level do you normally go for and do you need something with an edge support? Then there’s the style of mattress, which is often incredibly subjective as our body types and sleep patterns tend to vary wildly. Maybe you’re looking for something with memory foam or one with pocketed coils – or perhaps a hybrid mattress that marries the best of both worlds.
There’s a lot to think about when choosing the best mattress for athletes, but it’s a choice that can have real benefits in your performance.
What do the studies say?
A study from 2014 found that adolescents who didn’t get the required 8 hours of sleep, were 1.7 times more likely to suffer an injury while competing in sports. I know that doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but that’s nearly twice as likely. Would you eat something before a race if you were twice as likely to have digestion problems? Of course not. Sport is about small margins, and sleep is something you absolutely have control over.
How does sleep help an athlete?
Before we dive into the best mattresses for athletes, let’s take a close look at why it’s important that an athlete has the best mattress possible.
Recovery
This shouldn’t be news to anybody, but sleeping is vital for the body’s recovery. While you sleep, your body produces human growth hormone (HGH) which repairs damaged muscles. Not enough sleep, not enough recovery, lower performance – it is as simple as that. In an ideal world your body remains in relaxed pressure relieving position throughout the night in a good to to help your muscle recovery the best it can.
Decision Making
When we sleep our brains begins the process of consolidating memories. Short terms information is categorised and stored and those tiny things that you do during practice will eventually become ingrained. This is important for athletes as it significantly improves split-second decision making, which as you know can be the difference between gold and silver.
Stamina
Interestingly enough, how we sleep plays a key role in our perception of our exercise. If you’re sleep deprived, the body tells you that you are more tired than you actually are. Your ability to push your yourself harder and further becomes much harder without a good night’s rest. A quality night’s sleep is hugely beneficial for athletes and shouldn’t be underestimated while training.
Reaction Times
Again, this probably shouldn’t be ground-breaking news for anybody out there. When you are groggy and haven’t slept enough, your brain feels like it operators at a much slower speed than when you are fully rested. A study by NASA revealed that astronauts who had a 26-minute nap saw their reaction time jump by 54%. Just imagine what that could do to your performance!
What bad mattresses can do
A bad mattress without a decent support system can lead a wide variety of alignments from back pain to narcolepsy. It’s important for athletes to feel as fresh as possible, so it makes sense that the thing that you spend between 6 and 9 hours on every night should be high quality.
Back pain is probably the most issue that comes out of a bad mattress but you can throw neck, hip and joint pain in also as they very common. Your sleeping position can certainly have a bearing on how long a mattress can last before it really starts causing you issues, with certain pressure points on the body being affected differently depending on how you’re sleeping.
A mattress that can no longer relieve pressure is essentially useless, so if you find yourself frequently waking feeling sore, it might be time to look for a new mattress.
Things to keep in mind before purchasing a new mattress for athletes
As we mentioned at the beginning, there’s plenty to bear in mind when choosing a mattress for athletes. So much so that it can become a bewildering set of complex words and phrases when really you just need everything simplified – and that’s exactly why we’re here.
Pressure Relief
This is important for everybody, but can be particularly crucial for athletes or those with an active lifestyle who are putting their bodies under huge strain. Our muscles, joints and bones are constantly under stress as we move, so it’s important that your bed provides you pressure relief and support in those important areas.
This support can come in the form of a good comfort layer of foam which might even be slightly thicker in certain places.
Firmness Level
To find the best mattress for you, you need to be clear about what firmness level you require. Notice how I said require rather than want there? Sometimes what we want (a wonderfully deep foam mattress to sink into) is quite different to what we really need (a medium firm mattress with excellent pressure relief).
But saying that, your preference on the firmness scale is often very personal and you should always go with a firmness that you feel comfortable with. Most mattresses these days come with a 100 night trail, which gives you plenty of time to test out the firmness and support system of the mattress.
Sleeping Positions
How you sleep is also something you should be aware of as it can often link into the best firmness level for you. Stomach sleepers really need a mattress firm enough to support their hips and midsection so a mattress that is medium firm or higher is generally recommended. Side sleepers on the other hand usually work better with a mattress between soft and medium firm, while those who sleep on their backs should generally go for something on the firmer side.
Whichever way you sleep, it’s important to keep spinal alignment in mind as well as protecting your shoulders and hips. Sleeping positions can cause really problems for the human body if you get into bad habits, whether it be back and stomach sleepers or side sleepers. Spinal alignment is important for everybody, whether you’re an athlete or not, but sadly something that few pay close attention to.
Mattress Type
The technology used in mattresses these days is fairly mind-blowing and there is a wide variety of mattress types available – perhaps even too many if you’re tying to make a quick decision. The best mattresses for athletes on the market at the moment usually come with some kind of memory foam layer, whether that be gel infused memory foam, memory foam latex or the next generation hyper elastic polymer.
An edge support is also pretty popular these days and are primarily designed to prevent the mattress from sagging over time while adding a firmness to it when you sit or lie down.
Motion Isolation
Part of getting a good night’s sleep, is often the person who might be lying next to you, whether you’re an athlete or not. Motion isolation essentially means that the bed won’t wobble all over when somebody is tossing and turning at night. The best mattress for an athlete with a partner will need to have excellent motion isolation and luckily almost all of the best mattresses today are pretty good with this.
What are our picks for the best mattresses for athletes?
OK, that’s enough on why a good mattress is important for an athlete, here are our four favourites mattresses.
Mammoth Sports Mattress
The mammoth sports mattress combines comfort with some wonderful engineering. Composed of four different layers, including one with Mammoth’s Medical Grade Foam, a memory foam mattress that pre-dated most in its category and which was tested at the University of Northumbria.
Providing excellent all-round support, this mattress is an excellent choice for any athlete and is also recommended for anybody up to 40st. This a memory foam mattress that offers excellent pressure relief and temperature regulation and can be purchased as a medium, medium firm or firm mattress.
It comes with a 100-night trial guarantee, which gives you plenty of time to get out and train then test out the new mattress, and a 10 year warranty.
£519.00 – £879.00
Ergoflex 5G mattress
The Ergoflex 5G mattress that athletes are seemingly falling over themselves to endorse, so they must be doing something right. Chris Froome, four-times Tour de France winner, uses an Ergoflex mattress, and he’s obviously doing something right!
Billed as the mattress of choice for the UK’s top athletes, this Ergoflex is certainly creating a stir. This memory foam mattress combines excellent temperature regulation with superb support across the entire body. This is one mattress that has seen almost universal positive reviews and is pretty much guaranteed to keep you comfortable throughout the night.
The Ergoflex comes with a 30-day trial and a 10-year warranty to match.
£499.00 – £939.00
Therapy Mattress
Another popular one – the Therapy Mattress is a gel infused memory foam mattress that again comes with a host of sports stars with nothing but glowing words about their comfort and support. From cricketers to rowers, from rugby players to discus throwers, Therapy Mattresses are wildly popular.
All of their designs are aimed at those with an active lifestyle, but their Sports Latex, Sports Gravity Gel and Sports Blu Cool really stand out for athletes.
Formed with a multi-zone foam unit, these medium-firm mattresses come with individual castellated comfort cells which aid ventilation and airflow by creating air channels. This allows for a much more therapeutic sleep and gives the body that much needed time for its muscle recovery.
Each mattress comes with a 99-night trial period and a 5-year warranty.
From £775.00
Molecule Mattress
Last but by no means least we come to Molecule Mattresses. This American piece of engineering comes with dazzling comfort, enhanced airflow and heat dissipation. You can tell that there was an awfully lot of time put into the design and creation of these mattresses, but they are worth the wait.
Its Geometric zoned reflex layer provides the kind of targeted and adaptive support that is really required by top athletes to help with muscle recovery. And if you want an example of such an athlete, you need to look no further than 23 Olympic gold medallist Michael Phelps who has used Molecule Mattresses for years.
Their mattresses come with a 100-night trial guarantee, and an impressive ‘infinity warranty’ – which is about as good as a lifetime warranty as you’re going to get!
From £650.00
What are our conclusions?
The question of whether athletes need specialised mattresses will probably depend on just what kind of an athlete you are and how dedicated you are to optimising your performance. If you enjoy a few runs during the week, you might not need these kinds of mattresses, but if you are interested in taking things to the next level – or you’re already at that level – a specialised mattress for athletes might just give you that extra edge.
Sport is often about centimeters and seconds, maybe that better night’s sleep is just what you need to finally succeed. Aches and pains are part and parcel of training and improving performance, but when you lay your head down at night, you want a mattress below you that is going to give you excellent pressure relief and comfort throughout the night.
