An investigation into sleep, perceived experiences, and exercise performance in elite male cyclists during the Tour de France
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Date
2025
Authors
Fitton, J.
Lechat, B.
Reynolds, A.C.
Toson, B.
Manners, J.
Nguyen, P.
Loffler, K.A.
Altree, T.J.
Catcheside, P.
Eckert, D.J.
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Journal article
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Physiological Reports, 2025; 13(10):e70395-1-e70395-12
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Josh Fitton, Bastien Lechat, Amy C. Reynolds, Barbara Toson, Jack Manners, Phuc Nguyen, Kelly A. Loffler, Thomas J. Altree, Peter Catcheside, Danny J. Eckert
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Abstract
This study explores the dynamics of sleep, somatic/psychological experience, and exercise performance before, during, and after the Tour de France (TDF). Objective and subjective sleep, self-reported perceived experience, and objective exercise performance data were collected daily from eight elite male cyclists across a 6-week period including the 3-week TDF and 11-day pre-and post-race periods. Associations between, and temporal changes in, primary interest metrics were explored through Pearson correlation and linear mixed models. Participants were (mean ± SD) aged 30 ± 4 years with overall objective sleep duration of 8 h 11mins (±58 min) per night. Sleep quality (0–100) was lower during the race than pre-race (β [95% CI]; −8.0[−11.7, −4.3]). During the pre-race period, sleep onset (4 [2, 5] mins) and offset times delayed (5 [3, 7] mins) and self-reported stress increased (1.87 [1.14, 2.61]) daily. Increases in muscular soreness (0.6 [0.3, 0.8]) and fatigue (0.4 [0.2, 0.6]) during the race preceded daily declines during the post-race period (−3.1 [−4.0, −2.1]; −2.7 [−3.5, −1.8]). Relative performance output (Performance Index; 0–1000) negatively predicted sleep duration (r [95% CI]; −0.32 [−0.46, −0.17]) and sleep quality (−0.34 [−0.47, −0.19]) during the race. Temporal changes in, and associations between, sleep timing, perceived experience, and exercise function highlight the potential for sleep-improvement strategies that enhance performance in naturalistic endurance sporting contexts.
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© 2025 The Author(s). Physiological Reports published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Physiological Society and the American Physiological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.