Collegiate volleyball athletes are able to sustain a greater level of performance due to many recovery practices.

Caleb Rockwood
Fri, 17 Apr 2026 10:45:00 PDT

Collegiate volleyball demands high-intensity physical and mental work, however athletes often struggle to maintain the recovery processes necessary to sustain a high level performance throughout a season. This project investigates how consistent recovery practices, specifically sleep, nutritional habits, and mobility, influence the ability of college volleyball players to maintain high level performance. The central problem I’ve examined is the trap, where the dual pressures of academic responsibilities and athletic commitments lead to sleep loss and nutritional deficits according to literature.

The ultimate question for this research is whether a consistent recovery routine can mitigate the typical mid-season performance decline often seen in competitive sports according to literature. To explore this, I am conducting a survey based study that asks volleyball athletes to document their daily recovery routines, including their typical post game recovery steps and energy levels. By comparing these real world practices against established sports science standards in literature, the project identifies specific "recovery deficits".

While data collection is currently in progress, I predict that athletes who prioritize consistent sleep and refueling strategies will respond with lower fatigue and more stable performance throughout a season than those with inconsistent habits. This work is significant because it showcases the line between professional recovery in research and the constraints of student athletes. Ultimately, these findings aim to provide coaches and players with an insight to how important regular recovery steps are, and how these steps correlate directly with a greater level of play.