Recovery practices in Division 1 collegiate athletes in North America

Establish current practice and attitudes towards recovery in a group of Division-1 Collegiate athletes from North America.

A 16-item questionnaire was administered via custom software in an electronic format.

152 student athletes from a Division-1 Collegiate school across 3 sports (Basketball, American Football, Soccer).

The approaches and attitudes to recovery in both training and competition.

Sleep, cold water immersion (CWI) and nutrition were perceived to be the most effective modalities (88, 84 and 80% of the sample believed them to have a benefit respectively). Over half the sample did not believe in using compression for recovery. With regard to actual usage, CWI was the most used recovery modality and matched by athletes believing in, and using, the approach (65%). Only 24% of student athletes believed in, and used, sleep as a recovery modality despite it being rated and perceived as the most effective.

Collectively, there is a discrepancy between perception and use of recovery modalities in Collegiate athletes.